Autism Out Loud
Excerpt from my latest book!
“What do a Midwestern girl, a southern debutante, and a housewife from New Hampshire have in common? We each have a son with autism.
Jack, age nineteen.
Cooper, age twelve.
Amos, age ten.
Throughout these pages are three wildly different stories of the bell curve, told by three different mothers living across the country from one another.
It all started with a Facebook Live in 2020. Thanks to the pandemic, the world had just fallen apart. Kate suggested we talk online about a current event related to autism and adoption. Adrian kept bringing up something called a cookie cake. Apparently, they are very popular in North Carolina.
We don’t remember much of the details, but we do remember how hard we laughed during our time together. We do remember, through our screens, feeling a connection that we rarely experience in everyday life. From late night texts to morning phone calls, we began to share the vulnerable, often messy side of building a family. How, at one time or another, we have each experienced the piercing loneliness that accompanies life alongside a diagnosed child.”
Want to read more? You can preorder Autism Out Loud here and have it on April 1st!
Reading Autism Out Loud right now and every chapter feels like home - so many similar emotions and experiences. As for the guidebook, when we were going through the Early Childhood Intervention program at UCLA, the best piece of advice we received was to connect with parents who had a child a little bit older so they could share what they had already been through. Yes, each child is totally different and each family is different but having someone to hold the flashlight for you is universal. Thank you so much, Carrie (and Kate and Adrian). I'm just so grateful for your book and for the poetry you always manage to deliver with some of the more painful parts of being an autism parent.
I pre-ordered yall's book the very first day I could