I’m a writer of fiction, essays, and comic books diagnosed with Autism (the artist formerly known as Asperger’s Syndrome and High-Functioning Autism), inattentive ADHD, Depression, and Anxiety in midlife.

These letters are primarily about mental health and the writing life and how my diagnosis has pushed me towards a more profound love for my family with my librarian wife. But this letter isn’t depressing. It’s about finding joy in everyday things, thinking philosophically to be emotionally healthy, and finding my voice in my writing life.

This letter includes monthly notes and links on what I read, listened to, or thought about that fuels my life. It will also feature a full-length monthly essay on a book I read, a show or movie I loved, or another topic related to culture, neurodiversity, philosophy, psychology, and parenting. And yes, sometimes even sports. You could think of them as mini Special-Interests or Hyperfixations. I have a lot of hyper-fixations.

As an example, in what is my favorite writer profile by David Kamp on John Hughes, there is a quote from his son about how the Ferris Bueller’s Day Off writer/director used email:

“He was a relative latecomer to e-mail,” says James. “But I remember that, when he did get it, we were all like, ‘Oh, shit—here it comes.’” Hughes’s e-mails were thought avalanches, lavish interdisciplinary discourses on current events, political scandals, the Chicago Black Hawks, movies he’d watched on TCM, authors he’d seen on C-span’s /Booknotes,/ the trees he was planting, the obscure hillbilly music he’d taken to compiling, and whatever else happened to be on his mind. “In his later years it was sort of his primary job, to ingest all this material and riff on it,” says James.

That is kind of what I’m doing here with this newsletter. I hope you like it.

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Monthly neurodivergent fiction by an Autistic/ADHD dad, husband, reader, and nerd.

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I'm a reader and writer from the mountains of New York getting used to life as an Autistic/ADHDer living in Southern Indiana.