This is a feature I’ve been wanting to do for a while now. I love recommending autistic stories, but my reading life is more than just autism and sometimes I want to show people other things, too!
Something that makes me curious about the ND rejection issue...
There absolutely, without a single doubt, *are* autistic and neurodivergent creators who've gotten book deals, wound up with bestsellers, made enduringly popular television, etc. etc. And we quite possibly won't ever know who a lot of them are...like obviously I have my suspicions, I look at certain books and go "no, no way is this person neurotypical," but a lot of them are never going to be out.
But so...what *is* it about those works that capture an acquisition editor's or network executive's or the public's enthusiasm so completely as to override the "ND characters are unrelatable" effect?
Is it something about them being profoundly, unabashedly weird without being pitched a certain way? Are manuscripts not finding their way to editors who would be more into them or more able to evaluate them with an open mind? Do editors not know how to talk about what they really want?
Because it *cannot* be that all the successful media and literature we have, especially in sci-fi and fantasy, is actually just written by neurotypicals. It can't.
Things I've Been Reading
Something that makes me curious about the ND rejection issue...
There absolutely, without a single doubt, *are* autistic and neurodivergent creators who've gotten book deals, wound up with bestsellers, made enduringly popular television, etc. etc. And we quite possibly won't ever know who a lot of them are...like obviously I have my suspicions, I look at certain books and go "no, no way is this person neurotypical," but a lot of them are never going to be out.
But so...what *is* it about those works that capture an acquisition editor's or network executive's or the public's enthusiasm so completely as to override the "ND characters are unrelatable" effect?
Is it something about them being profoundly, unabashedly weird without being pitched a certain way? Are manuscripts not finding their way to editors who would be more into them or more able to evaluate them with an open mind? Do editors not know how to talk about what they really want?
Because it *cannot* be that all the successful media and literature we have, especially in sci-fi and fantasy, is actually just written by neurotypicals. It can't.