Fiona Crosby is a second year English Literature student at Teesside University currently doing an assignment on The Representation of “disability”. She wanted to ask me questions in relation to the representation of “autistic presence†in contemporary cultural forms. This is our interview: Read the rest of this entry »
This month’s featured art work is titled “Eleanor“. It’s title comes from the Beatles song Eleanor Rigby which I feel is a song that captures aloneness. I have rarely felt lonely but I experience aloneness all the time. I’m solitary by nature and by choice and I cherish my solitude enormously, often too much Read the rest of this entry »
Sometimes there are things which would be funny if they weren’t so annoying. One of those is where the use of the title “Dr” is taken to mean the person is qualified as a medical doctor, as a psychologist or psychiatrist. In fact “Dr” simply means they have a ‘doctorate‘, a PhD, a piece of paper showing they have achieved the highest level of education in a given field. But that could be a doctorate, a PhD in Philosophy, Sociology, Engineering, even in Biology and they’d have no more expertise to diagnose language, psychiatric, information processing, developmental or personality disorders, than a well read garbo. Read the rest of this entry »
 Zealots love a conspiracy and there’s nothing anyone can do to HELP THEM get over the manifestation of what might even be THEIR personality disorder. So why do some people pull out all the stops to gather others with their same orientation to escalate their theories into hate, even into public shaming forums and as far as cyber stalking. Read the rest of this entry »
  Welcome to the May 2009 poetry challenge. Tou can send in your poetry challenges for the April 09 poetry jam. So off you go – feel free to send me a TITLE or THEME to write to in the comments section and up to the end of April, you’ll find I’ve responded by posting a poem here addressing it.  Come on, give it a try. And don’t forget, 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.
Here’s the poems so far… Read the rest of this entry »
 Welcome to the April 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 can send in your poetry challenges for the April 09 poetry jam. So off you go – feel free to send me a TITLE or THEME to write to in the comments section and up to the end of April, you’ll find I’ve responded by posting a poem here addressing it.  Come on, give it a try.Â
Here’s the poems so far… Read the rest of this entry »
This month’s featured artwork is titled Blah Blah Blah. It’s a painting about meaning deafness Read the rest of this entry »
 As governments worldwide put economy before climate let me quote from , New Scientist cover story, from 28th Feb 09 issue from article “Surviving in a Warmer World” by Gaia Vince, who on page 33 quotes Crutzen in conclusion:
“I would like to be optimistic that we’ll survive, but I’ve got no good reason to be. I order to be safe we would have to reduce our carbon emissions by 70 per cent by 2015. We are currently putting in 3 percent more each year”.
Want to help change that? Lets stop over glorifying the replication process we call populating, get over ourselves, give the planet a rest and speak out to make the changes needed for us to be a planet that can still feed ourselves in 2015.
Donna Williams, Dip Ed, BA Hons
author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter
http://www.donnawilliams.net
A student named Kim Fairley had read several of my books and ws writing a paper on The Development of Autism. She asked if she could ask some questions. I agreed on the basis I’d publish it as an interview for the benefit of others. Here’s the interview: Read the rest of this entry »
 Barrie Silberberg is author of: The Autism and ADHD Diet: A Step-by-Step Guide to Hope and Healing by Living Gluten Free and Casein Free (GFCF) and Other Interventions, to be published by Sourcebooks, Inc. April 2009. Having been one of the earliest diagnosed people with autism on a GF/CF and low Salicylate/low Phenol diet (I went on this in 1990) I invited her to send me some questions about my experiences with the diet. Here’s our interview: 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 .