#ActuallyAutistic: Neurodivergent Storytelling
Event Details
Recently there’s been an exciting surge of neurodiverse representation in mainstream publishing, both in terms of characters and the authors who write them. Autism in
Event Details
Recently there’s been an exciting surge of neurodiverse representation in mainstream publishing, both in terms of characters and the authors who write them. Autism in particular seems to be unfolding past its old and tired stereotypes in the media and into a deeper, truer depiction of autistic life. Join Paige Layle, Colleen Coco Collins, and Maggie North, with moderator Kerry C. Byrne, as they explore how their neurodivergence influences the way they tell stories, and what fresh perspectives autistic minds bring to writers’ craft.
Speakers for this event
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Colleen Coco Collins
Colleen Coco Collins
Colleen Coco Collins [she/they] is an interdisciplinary artist of Irish, French, and Odawa descent, working in songwriting, performance, poetry and visual arts. She’s worked as a gallery director, in forestry, fossil preparation, and renovation; as an autism support worker, teacher, and women’s shelter counsellor. Her writing, music, and art practice centers on temporality, presumptions of sentience, subversion, rhythm, gesture, geographies, biophonies, frequencies, the ouroboric, the peripatetic, love and the polyglottic. Hailing from Antler River/Deshkan Ziibiing/London, Ontario, Coco has studied at universities in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, New Zealand/Aotearoa, and Ireland/Éire. She lives litorally and autistically in rural Port Greville, Mi’kma’ki/Nova Scotia amidst crows, coyotes, grackles, bees, humpback, lichen and fox.
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Maggie North
Maggie North
Maggie North writes deeply emotional, strangely hilarious novels at the intersection of romance and women’s fiction. Her favorite subjects include introverts at the end of their [expletive] ropes, STEM, Canada, and other overlooked, underrated things you’d love to discover. She enjoys being autistic a lot more since her diagnosis as an adult. She lives in Ottawa with her spouse, The Kid, and a rotating cast of hypoallergenic aquarium friends.
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Paige Layle
Paige Layle
Paige Layle is an Autistic advocate and influencer who speaks from personal experience about their struggles being an undiagnosed Autistic child in her new book, But Everyone Feels This Way: How An Autism Diagnosis Saved My Life. Now in their twenties, Layle advocates for Autistic children all over the world, with millions of social media followers joining on their journey to better Autism education. She also sings, acts and dances whenever possible. She probably is right now.
Books
But Everyone Feels This Way
AuthorPaige Layle
Rules for Second Chances
AuthorMaggie North
Sorry About the Fire
AuthorColleen Coco Collins
