It was 1995. Kimberly Gerry Tucker first entered my life quietly through a door in a cute living doll’s house in Connecticut. I was a newly published author on a publishing tour in the US and in Connecticut for my first ever public lecture at Trinity College. Kimberly was an undiagnosed Aspie with Selective Mutism and severe social anxiety. She was towering and I felt very short in her presence. I was bouncy and she was timid, gentle and humble.

Years later, Kimberly had an added diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome and I read Kimberly’s first book. Now I have trouble with receptive speech both spoken and written, so I’m just not a fluent reader, but Kimberly’s book grabbed me by the gut and throat and by the end I had cried a bucket. I interviewed her about it.

Here’s our interview:

DONNA:
Hi Kim, Tell us about your book.

KIMBERLY:
Aah, that book. Something that fell out of my fingers as I stared at a computer screen; bug-eyed with insomnia. (Untrue… I started it on an electric typewriter as a means to purge ‘word junk-food’ in my head. The process took chunks of my life.)

That house where you and I met had rows of straight-stemmed daffodils that lined the front walk and saluted as I passed by in quiet salutation. In the backyard, lacy little weeds were nestled inside the cracks in the concrete. You picked one up, uprooting it, and inspecting it close-up. Then you gently put it back home. (Years afterward, I built a doll’s house and painted it the same shade of blue as that house in Deep River. I took a blunt instrument to the doll’s house in 2007 when mold from my basement destroyed it, however.)

I considered many titles for my book: “Holy Dust Motes,” “An Aspergers Journey- A Story Of Love and Loss”, “The Mime’s Box” and finally I settled on “Under The Banana Moon, (Living, Loving, Loss and Aspergers).” I have two paintings of mine on the cover. I’m a reader, a writer, an observer and also a participant in life through art.

DONNA:
I often sign off ‘Ever the Arty Autie’ which fits me as I’m a prolific artist on many different levels, enough that much of my autism is now engulfed by myArtism.

KIMBERLY:
I understand and relate to that.

DONNA:
I like the title ‘The Mime’s Box’.

KIMBERLY
Me too. A ‘mime’ carries around that elusive invisible box, trying to feel their way out of it. I relate to mimes on a personal level. They aren’t expected to talk, for one thing. I used to throw paper airplanes at my parents with messages inside when I needed or wanted something as I could not always easily speak, even to them. That often backfired as they didn’t realize there were handwritten notes on the papers. They told me to stop throwing things!

My book gets its title from a 4 year old boy I stood in line with to acquire ice cream (at a farm) on a warm summer night. He looked at the sky and said “Did you ever notice how sometimes the moon is a ball and sometimes it’s a banana?” I began to think, how much of our lives unfold under banana moons? It quickly became the only title I could consider for the book. Of course life unfolds under all phases of the moon but “banana moon” nurtures my inner imagist.

Thanks again for the moving synopsis in the Forward that you wrote for me. My book is graced with you having read it first. I’ve always admired not only your talents, but your strength and your ability to challenge the boundaries of your comfort zones. My book is my journey but Howard’s too. Lou Gehrigs disease ravaged my late spouse’s body. But…not his mind or sex drive. This is not only an autist’s journey, but a story that anyone who has lost a loved one may relate to.

One chapter is called “keeper of the penis” and that’s a general description of what it is I did. I did all aspects of home healthcare, and then some. My book is as personal and honest as it is comic (at times).

DONNA:
Yes, Howard’s sexuality is a small part of the book, but what struck me about it was your journey with identity. That you were a whole, arty, sensitive human but it was you who had to sacrifice much of your identity to being ‘the keeper of the penis’ and it’s that contrast, between how much more you were and how much you deserved in a life that had always been a harsh pretty rough road. That’s what’s so moving about your book, and the way you really transcend that limitation, and retain at least a private sense of self until your life allowed you to progressively become more.
I was your editor and mentor in that writing process.

KIMBERLY:
I almost fully lost my identity, that’s true. I appreciate that insight by the way. To run with your midwife metaphor…The author experience is like one big drawn out pap smear with a roomful of interns watching. Letting someone read one’s stuff is brutally exposing.

DONNA:
Tell us about that mentor relationship we shared and how it worked.

KIMBERLY:
During the whole process of editing the book, we did not end up with very much ‘afterbirth’ in the delete bin. My agent and her assistant have since edited more content without sacrificing story content. I trust them and their decisions. I suppose that deleted sentences (like so much afterbirth) have to be there or the final product could never shine. You expel it, but it fed the good stuff in the beginning-got you where you were going.

DONNA:
You and I have unusual family backgrounds in some ways and it was also this which connected me to your book.

KIMBERLY:
I truly adore storytelling. I know that my book is priced very fair online so I am definitely not in this for the money. Telling a story is superb fun, having people actually read what one has written and enjoy the telling, that’s the reward. I read reams of books about writers and artists. I find it incredibly interesting to know what makes people tick: the things that shaped them as people, as artists. Sometimes it’s one tidbit of information, one sentence, one lyrical turn of phrase that tickles me and I’m smiling all day. For example, the day I rhymed ‘wisteria’ with ‘hysteria’ I was practically skipping on down my street! I hope readers get that from my book “Under The Banana Moon”.

I feel that autobiographical accounts of writers’ lives are as interesting (if not more-so in some cases) as the writing or art the person is known for creating. I never thought of my own life as unusual. I can’t understand that description as it applies to me or to my background, or to my life in general. I hope people relate to what I’ve written. Even neurologically typical people may have married a first “love”, had children, (because that’s what’s expected) and lost a loved one to a terminal disease. My book has that but it’s told by a person who happens to be a tree-loving, rock-loving, storyteller who is on the spectrum.

Donna, you helped me be a secret sorter. What makes sense to put down? What is good to purge and delete? I simply cannot NOT write. If I was lost in the woods I’d be writing in sand and trying to develop ways to preserve what I’d written down.

DONNA:
Tell us a bit about your ‘background’.

KIMBERLY:
My background? My new puppy Minnie is behind me. Grass needs mowing. There are some houses behind me as well. Laptop upon my lap. (The dog ate a slug and is wearing a sort of slime lipstick now…) Sorry, I had to.

DONNA:
No, that was cool, and an example of the humor and surrealism you have as a writer. Seriously.

KIMBERLY:
She eats them every day when she can find them! Life catapults some very surreal things at a person. Suddenly the circumstance in which one finds oneself is the opposite of what you expected. Every change feels straight out of a Dali painting. You can’t believe it’s happening to you at first and then somehow you summon up strength to persevere. I was the only child of two loving parents. I had some deafness at birth due to a cracked eardrum and hearing problems still persist. I lived in a hoarder’s house but what did I know? I had no negative ‘feelings’ associated with that and still don’t. I always had meals, clean clothes and dishes and support. Things were stacked so high! What a paradise for a thing-lover.

“Shy” is not a fair descriptive term. I believe in calling a zebra a zebra. “Striped horse-like animal” works but Aspergers is nothing to hide, to fear, to be embarrassed about. There’s a difference between shyness and Aspergers. A person can be both. With selective mutism it’s hard to speak. I saw “The King’s Speech” and identified with the humiliation, fear, embarrassment, frustration and anger of the movie’s main character as he dealt with a communication impairment. It’s like the voice is inside a runaway elevator on freefall. You aren’t accessing it. Throat’s closed! Vulnerable. Scary.

Colors mean much to me. I’ve lived in many houses that were grey. I hated to leave them, every one of them. I wanted to somehow take them with me to the next place, and each boulder and tree and path. But the memory holds the houses.

DONNA:
Not many writers impress me but you are a writer by heart. Oh please, someone publish this woman!

KIMBERLY
The conundrum many writers face. I had three very stimulating conversations with editors that my agent set up for me. I was sailing on winged feet. These ladies worked at big publishing houses. It was exciting to acquire an agent, first of all. Our conversations were hopeful. She loved my book. She was behind me and believed in me. She set up conversations with editors. We talked anywhere from twenty minutes to nearly an hour. I was open to yet more rewrites, to any marketing they proposed. They each had personal connections to people on the spectrum. Everything looked promising. I was ready to face selective mutism the way the King did in the movie and beat it. I even sought out support (Judy Rosenfield, who changed the name of her center to King’s Speech because of me!). She was going to help me if I needed to tour.

Each of these editors did have positive accolades for me, but passed. They couldn’t convince everyone “around the table” to take a chance on a new writer. And in the end, I will still write. My agent’s assistant put my book on the internet and it’s available now in e-book.

When the day is done I’m thinking how lovely wisteria smells (and how it rhymes with hysteria). At the end of the day I’m head over heels (as they say) in love with words and that’s why I write.

DONNA
You went on to become a ghost writer. Many people won’t really know what that involves.
Tell us about the nuts and bolts of that process.

KIMBERLY:
I’m the nut, and the bolt of the process is the person you write the book for. I HAD to say that.

DONNA:
Should I quit my job as poet and writer now? You would give me a run for my money in a writer’s duel… now there’s an idea!

KIMBERLY:
I’ve taken a ghostwriting break. It’s gaining tidbits of the story from your client in as many ways as you can and from as many sources as you are able and then (like a mosaic) creating an end product- the book your client wanted. I’ve worked from videos, audio (recorded files) and talked via phone. I ended up asking my client Tony at least100 questions, and his wife too. I wanted descriptives like: What was Iran’s weather like? What color was the roof of your childhood home in iran? What about the hospital waiting room at the Burn Center? The chairs there? I was lucky to have testimonies and e-mails from doctors and friends and family members involved in the story, even the pastor who found Tony burning on the street. The book I wrote, Reborn Through Fire; took seven months. I compiled everything, trying to use Tony’s “voice” as if I was him speaking. As in, “I did this,” Tony speaking, in first person. But more than that. Words he would actually choose, taking his accent into account and so forth. I am currently working on “The Dennis Gray Story” but I’ve put it on hold…and my paintings have taken much of my time.

DONNA:
Ha, ha, perhaps I’ll point out as your one time editor that Iran has a capital ‘I’–
Or I’ll just remind readers that that’s what an editor does… little stuff like picking up on where ‘i’ should be ‘I’ and a writer’s craft is far harder, to be a wordsmith, not just clever but beautiful, wild, exciting in the ART of one’s written expression… and that’s what I think Kimberly has. God, I’m sounding like a fan… this is unheard of, I don’t gush, I don’t even like gush or gushers… see look what ya made me do Kim!
Aside from being a writer, you’re an artist, craftsperson and a mime artist.
Want to tell us about your other arts, what they are, where the inspiration comes from and what they mean to you?

KIMBERLY:
I’ve developed a few health problems. Early stage glaucoma, cataracts, Trigeminal neuralgia, a carotid aneurysm. Perhaps the saddest thing is that I take a medication to help with migraine which takes away my creativity. If I get an e-mail to show my paintings, I go off my medication so I can do a series of paintings and perhaps some writing. After the paintings are hung, (and some serious pain) I go back on the medication. I have to choose: being my true creative self with some chronic pain, or dulled down and pain free with no creative expression. I’m struggling with identity in a big way right now. I used the expression of dressing as a mime to deal with the stress of my husband’s illness as I cared for him. That’s in the book. It was either, have a creative outlet, or break down and crumble into nothing. I enjoy mosaics so fully that my enjoyment should be declared illegal! I love creating. I used to make elves out of felt. That came about because Binghamton and Thaddeus live under my refrigerator.

DONNA:
I won’t ask, let them guess.

KIMBERLY:
Speaking of elves, I used to have a marvelous mentor named Zsolt Megai, a Hungarian teacher/mentor/motorcycle enthusiast who is a talented woodcarver, glassworker, and painter. He tells wonderful stories. I am blessed to know him. I have put a giant totem pole project on the back burner for awhile. I was carving it but have taken a break for now. I hope to return to it. Owning a totem pole of one’s own creation is a marvelous thing. I love wood and Zsolt may be in part responsible. I think of trees more than I ever have. In Zsolt’s yard is a tree with a mark on the bark so much like an all-seeing eye. In my father’s yard, a coniferous tree grows, with exposed roots exactly shaped like a human hand. My father is the type always to lend a helping hand. I have pictures of both these anomalies. How appropriate and not so coincidental! As for the Maple tree I sit under as I type this, I have lived here twenty years and this scarred tree has been cut (misshapen really) by tree cutters because the tree dared grow too close to the house on one side and too close to the telephone pole on the other. Its been cut completely in half! How odd it looks! Yet it perseveres despite everything that it’s endured. The tree that hit your house missed you guys Donna. That too speaks volumes.

DONNA:
Oh, wild, as one does, huh? God, you are lucky. Zsolt has the character and name of something from a film script… Hey, good idea, I’ll write him into my next one. I wrote a Dystopian Epic Romance called Mc Reedy’s Christmas. He’s got the texture of my character Delf.

You’ve become involved with documentary maker Keri Bowers who, together with her son Taylor Cross made the award winning documentary, Normal People Scare Me.

KIMBERLY:
Yes I am interviewed in the film “ARTS” (as you are as well). I did not understand at the time what to say, what the purpose was. My artwork “Shatterd Image, Self Portrait” was on the cover of the first book edited by Debbie Hosseni: Artism, and I have poetry and art in the second one too.

DONNA: Yeah, I’m in the arts film too. I met Keri Bowers and Taylor Cross in my hotel room when visiting LA. I was there meeting with regards to the film of and Keri and Taylor asked to meet. They were lovely, very autie-friendly.

KIMBERLY
I agree.

DONNA
Kim, you know I support your book like crazy. What was it like plugging away trying to get it a publisher?

KIMBERLY:
Hugs put more dents in me than rejection letters. Words just have to get out lest they float out my mouth and suffocate me while i sleep. Hordes of inky Times New Roman text jumbling all around in foamy word nonsense drool leaking down my chin. Got to make sense of all that’s going on in here (she taps her head) whether it means getting published or not. That means it hits a napkin. Or a screen, or something. Sometimes you let it go-if someone decides its worth x amount of dollars then i can !surprise! pay my water bill without struggle. Wonderful! I don’t obsess or dwell. I happen to adore words, to love them. To get paid for rearranging them into sentences-its a plus. I never had some lifelong “dream”: Oh boy I’ll write a book. NO i wanted to be a ballerina. We see how that turned out.

DONNA:
Oh that’s so funny. I didn’t want to be a ballerina but I was trained for it. I did love the netting and satin though and those shoes smell great, and I loved the music and movement and the regimental army thang of training was probably majorly good for me given my brain and body weren’t on speaking terms, I had very little receptive language and could learn best through physical patterning, and had no attention span or impulse control. Hats off to the boss of that decision. I’ve no regrets. But being on stage wasn’t for me… yet learning TO DO IT probably is behind why I can hack lecturing and presenting as a ‘pragmatic exercise’… wild what things teach you, it’s often never what others might imagine. And I really support music, art and dance therapy with some auties.
What advice do you have for other first time writers?

KIMBERLY:
Ballerinas… My tutu had pink sequins and was kept behind a charcoal bag on the top shelf in a horrid green entry pantry. It winked when I passed, when it caught light. I thought it beautiful. Unattainable of course. unrealistic. Sarcastically it winked. Haha! You will never wear me. Never master the grace you desire! Perhaps the most memorable film scene I saw as a child was Hans Christian Anderson, and he falls in love with a ballerina. He spends hours making ballerina slippers of many colors-all by hand. They all have long ribbons which cascade down…He presents this bouquet of shoes to his love interest in the movie scene, the ribbons flowing. I wept. Advice for writers, you ask me?
I certainly think reading is fundamental! Seriously, it is. The more styles you read, the more you develop your voice.

DONNA:
I have written more books than I have thoroughly read. Receptive language processing issues mean I can read snippets, lists, paragraphs with meaning but not whole pages, it just all tumbles and the meaning drops out. So I can research, to a degree, but can’t follow written instructions or learn from books. I can scan-read and that’s how I ate sociology texts for 4 years but I can’t really read novels to save my life. I can read to edit, though, and I have loved a few books. I read Memoirs of A Geisha (my reading claim to fame… I mean it is CHUNKY and just knowing I read a big book like that makes me real proud) and I read James Herriot’s little animal stories (they are in nice digestible chunks) and I read yours, not just scanned it, but being editor helped. My husband Chris EATS print. He devours all print, even bumph on sides of cereal boxes. And he has filled our house with print. I used to throw some of out, shred it, because print really daunts me, guess it’s like that for many dyslexics (my father and brothers hardly read) but I do read snippets in New Scientist thanks to him… just bite sized bits now and then, and that’s a really great influence. There was a time I hadn’t read a whole page for months. So he keeps my reading muscles from rusting, as do these interviews and editing work.

KIMBERLY:
I go to the library because i just love research. I even did a a bit of research for a lawyer last year. Wow that’s using the non-creative side of the brain! Phew, so not fun! AND I love libraries. The smell. The quiet. The olde. I love the history of towns. I used to love everything dust-related. And i have a “crow” thing.

But at the library where it smells like books, try a book in a style and time period you would never try. Anyway its something I have always done. I read something and then I say ‘wow’ this voice from the past is talking to me. It may not be your style but it will help your own voice develop. I remember when my voice came through. It was the one that had been there all along; rehashing the day’s events when I could not get to sleep at night and the one rhyming hysteria with wisteria when I was taking long walks downtown. Listen to it.

DONNA:
If publishers would like to contact you to get a look at your manuscript where would they contact you?

KIMBERLY:
my e-mail is:
kgtconeywheel.kaye@gmail.com
I am in Seymour, CT, USA.

DONNA:
Anything you’d like to add or tell people?

KIMBERLY:
Yes. Notice things. Don’t take anything for granted. I’ll tell you this: I’m considering a book on PTSD, but I don’t have permission yet from my main character. It will probably have to be touted as fiction. I may have to go off my medication to write it.

And this:I have the unique and gifted pleasure of visiting with an elderly friend who is somewhat of a grandmotherly figure to me. It is not easy for me to “feel at peace” in people’s homes. She is like a big hug. I want to tell people to read my book ‘Under The Banana Moon’ of course, which is available on Amazon. It is all about noticing things, as I am the great noticer of details from way back when! But back to my friend. She has sayings like “Goodnight nurse!” And “Man-oh-manaschevitz!” I don’t think it’s coincidental that outside her bay window are two beautiful shade trees with perfectly aligned outstretched ‘arms (limbs)’ on either side. She calls them her sister trees. They appear to be offering hugs. Take time to see. To really see. Always hope.

DONNA:
Oh, heck, there you go, signing off with an awesome piece of prose. Can’t help yourself you artist, you! Thanks so much for the interview. I think you’re awesome and an inspiration and people should get to read your book and find out why.

Warmly,

Donna Williams *)
author, artist, composer,screenwriter,
http://www.donnawilliams.net