 POLITICAL CORRECTNESS IN 3 DIFFERENT AUTISM WORLDS – By Donna Williams.
Whilst there are many political roads one can go in the autism world, I see there are at least three quite BASIC ones : Read the rest of this entry »
 I was asked some questions by Elaine Meyer, a freelance journalist and student at Columbia’s journalism school, who was writing an article about autism as a metaphor in literature. She explained that a literature professor at Cambridge named Andy Martin recently came out with an article comparing the writers Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus in which he said Sartre’s writing and personality exhibited autistic tendencies and Camus’ exhibited what he considered opposite empathetic tendencies. She said he cited Simon Baron-Cohen’s work as an influence and asked if she could ask me a few interview questions on the topic. Here’s our interview: Read the rest of this entry »
This month’s art work is called Coming Out.
Coming Out can mean many things and for me it is an important and valuable concept. This painting helps me celebrate the importance of coming out and the endurance and challenges it takes for any of us to do so. Read the rest of this entry »
  OK, so February got lost somewhere in the Victorian bushfires and their chaos and yes, my blog has been so quiet. But, welcome to the March 2009 poetry challenge. Who knows, any of you coming to see us at any of the upcoming gigs for Donna and The Aspinauts may actually see some of the poems performed, complete with gestural signing and characterisations.
But right now, you have 30 days to send in your poetry challenges for the March 09 poetry jam. So off you go – feel free to send me a TITLE or THEME to write to in the comments section and in the next 30 days, you’ll find I’ve responded by posting a poem here addressing it.  Come on, give it a try. Read the rest of this entry »
Katherine Kasper is a reader on the spectrum who read the third book in my autobiographical series, Like Colour To The Blind. When she emailed me about the book I offered her the opportunity to send me 10 interview questions about it. Here’s that interview. Read the rest of this entry »
This month’s art work is The Gadoodleborger.
In Nobody Nowhere I had thought of the world as having ‘The Worlders’, which were those who were ego driven and geared for appearances and ‘My Worlders’ who were those who valued ‘beingness’, had and valued a world of their own, and for whom image, ego and appearances were only secondary.
Then, in  Somebody Somewhere, in 1994, I first wrote of another category of humans; Gadoodleborgers.  Gadoodleborgers weren’t ‘The Worlders’, nor were they people necessarily on the autism spectrum. But what was special about Gadoodleborgers was that they were natural translators, bridgekeepers able to cross between worlds, diplomats, anthropologists interested in the wonderment of social difference and diversity. I wrote a fable about them best captured in the poem, The Gadoodleborger:
GADOODLEBORGER, copyright, Donna Williams, Aug 2008
He spied her in a magic wood, a sensing creature in need of none
And dreamed of how he’d join her there, his partner she would soon become
He lured her back to the place he knew, a world of hierarchy and of power
And there she then began to die, as surely as a wilting flower
His heart began to break inside, he knew only one thing to give
Return her to her sensing world, that she might find the will to live
And there as she began to bloom, she saw something he’d never seen
That he was not of that world either, a Gadoodleborger, he had been.
That he walked between two worlds, he now had finally understood
And so they made their home in neither world, at the edges of the magic wood.
So for me, The Gadoodleborger is a source of faith in humanity, a reason to shun opportunities for reverse prejudice against non-spectrum people, a reason to believe that neurodiversity exists amidst human beings in general and in not reserved for those with diagnostic labels. I have found Gadoodleborgers in the non-spectrum and autism spectrum populations and many many people in those populations are not Gadoodleborgonian, but I think I just may be rather Gadoodleborgonian and so I share this something with all other Gadoodleborgers throughout human kind, a something which defines me beyond being ‘an autistic’ and something which connects me to personhood more than labels.
The painting, The Gadoodleborger, was painted in Woolongong in 2002, the year my Gadoodleborgonian husband, Chris Samuel (who features in the book Everyday Heaven ), migrated to Australia from his UK homeland, allowing this homesick Aussie to return to live in Australia after almost 13 years away.  In this sense, it is our marriage, that of an autie with an Aspergerian Gadoodleborger, which is captured in this painting, something of the essence of Chris’ inquisitive interpretive mind and world of meaning, and mine as a place of sensing in the reality of someone partially meaning deaf, meaning blind and face blind.
The butterflies in the painting were originally rosella parrots, indicative of the return to Australia. But they were turned into butterflies a few years later, symbols of change, transition, adaptation, perhaps just as I was changing, transitioning, adapting from a world of autism into a world of ARTism.
The painting was done in acrylics on stretched canvas and the grass is full of rainbows. The colors capture the summer of Australia, and yet the lush dark green foliage across the water is perhaps the characters memories of the climate of the UK.
I hope you like the painting and feel free to visit my many other paintings in my online gallery at my website.
Warmly,
Donna Williams,
author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
http://www.donnawilliams.net
I’ve decided to start a new monthly feature called art work of the month. I’m going to pick out one of my works and tell you the story behind it and its production. Hope you come to enjoy the feature and if you are also an artist, feel free to use the comments section to tell people a story about your own ARTism and don’t forget to check out the sites of the many artists listed over at http://www.auties.org.
The art work featured here is called Back to Normality . It’s part of a series which includes the works Imaginary Friend, Here They Come and The Lunatic. Read the rest of this entry »
 Belinda is a student doing the last year of a professional doctorate in clinical psychology. She has already completed a bachelor in behavioral neuroscience and postgraduate diploma in psychology. Her research project is investigating relationships and attraction among individuals with an Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC). The focus of her study is to explore attraction between those with an ASD and non-spectrum people to establish:
– What non-spectrum individuals find attractive in partners with an ASC
– What differences exist in the ratings of initial attraction between non-spectrum individuals with an ASC partner versus non-spectrum individuals with non-spectrum partner
– What individuals with an ASC find attractive in non-spectrum partners
I’ve invited her to send me 5 questions based on her research interest. Here’s that interview: Read the rest of this entry »
 Noise TVis a music TV show on Channel 31 in Melbourne. They produce music related programs</a> and also film and screen acts playing at Noise Bar in Brunswick where Donna And The Aspinauts are playing this February, Sunday the 8th.
Noise TV is run on a limited budget and is largely filmed and edited by volunteers who have gained experience in camera, sound and editing work at the TV station. Read the rest of this entry »
 
 Around 80-90% of adults on the autism spectrum have no full time employment. Even of those whose only spectrum issue is having an obsessive-compulsive personality, being a mono-track or details oriented type thinker, or having social emotional agnosia so they struggle to read facial expression or body language, one of the only easier places they get employment is in the geekville of I.T.
I directly employed spectrum adults where I can. Over the years, 9 of them, 2 of them in full time Read the rest of this entry »
Donna Williams is an Australian born adult with autism who was assessed as psychotic at the age of 2 in 1965, labelled disturbed in the 1970s and diagnosed as autistic in her 20s in 1991.
She acquired functional speech in late childhood and went on to become a qualified teacher with an honors degree in Sociology and a degree in Linguistics. She is the author of two international bestselling autobiographies and has 10 published books including 4 text books widely used in autism education and two books of poetry and prose.
As a screenwriter, she wrote the screenplay to “Nobody Nowhere”, the first book in her 4 book autobiographical series. That screenplay is currently under option to become a Hollywood film. She is an professional artist, singer-songwriter and published poet as well as a world renowned public speaker on autism now living with her husband in Australia. In her presentations she draws not only on her own experiences but on international experience as a professional autism consultant since 1996.
Donna’s is a speaker in demand around the world due to her unique perspective and ability to share her feelings and experiences on a very personal level. More information about her and her life’s work can be found on her website at http://www.donnawilliams.net .