This year I got a National Literary Awards commendation for one of my feature film screenplays, The Tower and was invited to accept my award. This time I decided to go.

But accepting bits of paper hasn’t always been my forte. What I didn’t fail in my third year of secondary school was largely not assessable and after 3 years and 30 jobs (some lasting only a day), I followed the insane belief of my shrink that I could do it and went back to school at age 18. To my surprise, and after lots of counseling, remedial English and Maths, I passed and passed well. I went on to the sheltered workshop that is university. After four years there I graduated with honors and two years later came back and got a postgraduate diploma in Education. But I avoided my own graduation, twice. I got a BA Hons and then a Dip Ed, but I didn’t buy the gown and cap, didn’t get up in front of people and take my paper. I let them send it in the post.

The National Literary Awards was a lovely friendly event, awards for writers nationwide in all genres, age groups and writing forms hosted by the Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW).

It was a buzz watching the very young writers dressed in their best go up and get their awards and some of them giving brave speeches.

Writer’s groups were awarded for anthologies, there were poetry and short story awards, awards for fiction novels and non-fiction works, an award for a writer and editor team to recognise the importance of editors in the writing process, awards for screenwriters in the TV and play categories and the awards for screenwriters of feature films (the award category I was in).

I went up the front in my nice new clothes (well the cropped cardigan and stockings were new, the buckled black boots were only a year old and the funky designer red silk and black lace dress was $8 from the charity shop last week but it looked GREAT and nobody knew… except maybe whoever had donated it there) and my husband Chris watched me wearing his snazzy duds.

I took my fancy paper awarding me a commendation for my Australian feature film screenplay, and went to the microphone with my little speech. I figured, well, I never went to any other award thingy where I was getting a piece of paper so I’ll make up for it here, who knows, National Literary Awards today, Oscars tomorrow (one can dream, after all, Sue Rubin did it and hopefully many more auties to come).

I gave my speech and for those of you who wonder what I said, here it is….

The Tower is a supernatural thriller about Kasim, a newly arrived devout Muslim from a war torn country living in an impoverished inner city tower block. He’s surrounded by lives caught up substance abuse, infidelity, homosexuality, theft, murder, and of course, fortune telling. Yet what is sacred and profane is relative and this is what The Tower is about.

Kasim’s journey, on a deeper level, parallels an autistic one about the struggle with a new language and comprehension, about daring to stay out there in spite of one’s fears, isolation and challenges. It’s an autistic one about alienation from those who are worlds apart from oneself, yet simultaneously it is about suffering from the Xenophobia of others unable to accept real diversity. It is an autistic journey about daring and trauma and the agoraphobic struggle to dare again. Kasim’s tower block represents the sanctuary of the prison and that flip of the coin which decides in any moment which it will be.

On a personal level, The Tower is my fifth of six screenplays to date which are informed by my own reality as a person with autism. Just as Kasim confronts challenges to his own presumptions of reality, as an autistic screenwriter, I challenge the prevailing stereotypes of autism.

People with autism are presumed many things;

Incapable of communication – yet 2/3rds of those with autism do speak, some go on to converse and those without verbal speech, like Sue Rubin, the writer of the Oscar nominated “Autism is A World”, have already achieved in the world of film. The arts, including writing, are part of autistic achievement world wide, and an essential one in a group which is among the most underemployed in the world.

People with autism are presumed incapable of empathy – yet there are autistic artists and authors emerging this last decade who have proven the opposite and some of whom are highly sensing people. The art of empathy is the ability to draw upon or create tangible characters you can identify, detest or who can rip your heart out.

Incapable of imagination – yet we are seeing the first autistic comedians, novelists, screenwriters; people who grew up being Thomas the Tank Engine, the family dog and a dozen TV characters. Characterisation is a skill as important as imagination and good characterisation is essential to writing film. I thank autism for that skill.

So in spite of and because of my autism, here stand I. I hope my commendation reminds others it IS worth honing a skill nobody believes you could have, that there are many roads, however quirky and unlikely, that lead to at least somewhere in Rome.

Finally, I’d like to thank my wonderful husband Chris for cups of tea and food when so engrossed in writing film that I become a possessed figure at a keyboard day and night. I’d also like to thank my producer friend, Bev Nero who has been mentor, friend and valued muse for three years, my supportive script editor, Fred Stahl who awakened me to non-linear structure and encouraged my surrealism and to the FAW for supporting writers through this wonderful award. Thank you.

I signed most of my speech (I’m fairly fluent in gestural signing - home sign) and later I heard that people loved my signing (if you’re dyslexic you might read that as singing, and I sing too but didn’t sing there!). Its amazing how many people have never seen someone sign like this. Yet so many people with receptive language processing disorders use home signs, could even be fluent in them, if only people realised that those with meaning deafness or who struggle to monitor the meaning of their own spoken language could benefit from growing up around the natural use of gestural signing. The autism world is catching on and I was so pleased to recently attend a conference where the use of gestural signing and communication via representational objects and drawing was being promoted. Wild. We’ve come a long way. But I digress.

We went on to the mansion where the snack thingies were offered and drinks - all called a ‘cocktail party’. Well, if that term was scary, the ‘party’ was not. It was crowded but Chris and I hugged a few walls and he photographed the architecture (he’s somewhat Aspergerian) and we were really pleased they actually had GF/CF food so I even got to eat things - awesome - now THERE’S an achievement - congratulations FAW for such thoughtfulness re diversity and inclusion. Those living in the ‘dietary wheelchair’ of food intolerances are so often overlooked in the world of disability, but you try buying a GF/CF lunch in the high street in the middle of a hypoglycemic episode miles from home and you’ll see what a disability it is. You’re lucky if you can get a plain packet of potato chips… its tough.

So, once again, thanks to FAW for hosting a lovely event. FAW does a wonderful job supporting Australian writers and screenwriters who themselves seemed a wonderful diversity friendly crowd.  Thanks also to my Australian script editor, Fred Stahl and my US literary agents at Bicoastal Talent for their encouragement of my screen writing.
Donna Williams

http://www.donnawilliams.net

author, artist, singer songwriter, screenwriter