Stim: An Autism Anthology

By Lizzie Huxley-Jones

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A collection of stories, essays and art from autistic authors and artists.

Publication date: April 2020
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About the book

Who do you picture when you think of an autistic person? Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory, Rain Man, the boy from Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time? These are the responses you’ll get from most people. Not the most diverse line up of voices, not least because they are all fictional, and all follow a really specific set of characteristics: good at maths, socially inappropriate, male, strange.

Yet the saying goes in the autistic community that if you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person; our individualities make us just as unique as neurotypical* people, shining through beyond the diagnostic criteria that links us.

Around 1 in 100 people in the UK are autistic, but rarely do autistic people have a voice. Dialogue around autism often follows a bleak and cliched path -- “problem” children, parents desperately seeking answers and cures, unemployment -- and it has been neurotypical people who have often led the discussion on autism in the wider media, the parents, carers, doctors, and experts. They are the ones on the daytime tv sofas, in parliament, or writing about their experiences with us. While these voices are important, the balance is tipped, and rarely do we get to use our own voices to talk about our experiences or to show how creative, smart and funny we are, how different from the stereotype most people have.

But the tide is starting to turn, and autistic people are taking the chance to speak for themselves, rather than being spoken about. The stereotypical view of autism we once had is starting to slip away, and the more representation there is, the more this will happen.

Autistic people have routinely been denied the opportunity to share their own stories, and we want to change that.

This anthology represents an important step in reclaiming that power, of using our own voices. This book will bring together some of the best autistic writers, showcasing the immense talents of people who just happen to be on the spectrum. It won’t just feature essays about what it is to be autistic, but also stories, illustrations and art. So this isn’t just a book for autistic people or those who work or live with us; Stim will be an enjoyable, insightful collection for people around the world, who want to discover and champion unheard voices.


What does Stim mean Stimming is the nickname for ‘stimulatory behaviours’, the repetitive self soothing movements that are a well recognised trait of autistic people. In many harmful autistic therapies, stimming is forcefully repressed; I want to reclaim this word as something powerful.


Why me I got diagnosed with Autism at the age of 28, accidentally discovering I was autistic through the power of other autistic people’s writing. It is a strange thing to read your life on the page, but also empowering and important. I want to help create a platform where other autistic people can interact with the art of their neurodiverse siblings and understand themselves better and where neurotypical people can get a real chance to see that we can be as brilliantly individually creative as neurotypicals can.


Contributors:
Grace Au
Nell Brown
Helen Carmichael
Mrs Kerima Çevik
Agri Ismaïl
Laura James
Katharine Kingsford
Rachael Lucas
Ashleigh Mills
Tristain Alice Nieto
Reese Piper
Cornelia Prior
Megan Rhiannon
Robert Shepherd
Waverly SM
Amelia Wells
Gemma Williams
Tjallien de Witte


* Neurotypical means not autistic, although its definition has in recent years expanded to include people who don’t have other cognitive differences, such as ADHD or epilepsy. You might also hear the word “allistic”, which means not-autistic too, but for the sake of ease we’ve stuck to the more familiar neurotypical here. The way we see and experience the world may be different from you, but that doesn’t make us abnormal, just different. We prefer to think that you’re neurologically typical and we’re neurologically diverse – neurotypical and neurodiverse.

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