KNOW THIS: You are already awesome. Truly. As is. You don’t have to look or be a certain way, you don’t ever even have to use mouth words to speak. But if you want to learn? I’ve got an idea: My Journey I’ve been a Toastmaster longer than I’ve been almost anything. My club was […]

Want an Autism Diagnosis? You Better Be Struggling. Right now? If you want a formal autism diagnosis, you can’t just show up as your epic autistic self, with your awesome autistic traits. Because it doesn’t matter what autistic sensitivities, strengths, intensities, or all-around-awesomeness you bring – if you want the official piece of paper? You […]

Dale Copeland MNZM is a goddess of assemblage, an ambi-lexical mathemagician, and an alchemist of potentiality. She’s a celebrated Taranaki artist, 6th Dan black belt in Taekwon-Do, infectiously giggly, and SUPER cute. She lives with more dead animals than live ones, and on the wall outside is written “Beware of Human.” She is my dream […]

Hey (early) book reviewers… My new book is out later this year, but available free for reviewers on NetGalley now! This book is a quick-start guide to making the world ND-friendly. It’s love for the neurotypicals who get it ❤️ (and help for the ones who don’t..!)  Ooh, and it’s on Goodreads if you want to add […]

Autistic + PhD Dr. Nick Walker is a legend, a miracle, a being of light, a professor, an aikido teacher and (pause for dramatic effect) autistic. She is best known for her book Neuroqueer Heresies and her work on neurodiversity and Neuroqueer Theory. (And especially appreciated by me as the first iconic autistic to ever […]

I am so over the idea of autism awareness, and half the time? I don’t even care about autism acceptance. What I’d like to see is some autism AWE. Because for every myth and straight-out lie that says what autistics can or should do, there are a heap of actual, real-life, blood-filled human autistics can-ning and should-ing across the globe. Here's the thing, Autistic World Domination is now. We are everywhere, and we are quietly (and loudly!) making the world our own! Your world, your way. Jolene 🙂

When I (or rather, baby autistic me) wrote my TEDx talk I had been diagnosed for two years and only a handful of people knew. This speech was a turning point. I knew that I had less to lose than many other autistics by going public. I had the privilege of feeling secure in my […]

“What do you look like under stress?” I’ve never been asked that in an interview, so it threw me. What do I look like under stress? I kicked off my answer with a bit of initial rambling, um, yep, well I probably talk less, work longer, eat more chocolate… But actually? However you’re seeing me, […]

I haven’t left the house for a couple of weeks (as in, no outside requirements, not sick or anything). It’s been awesome. I’ve been buzzing around in my head and there’s soooo much I want to do! (I have To Do lists of To Do lists. And I love it!) So many exciting things are […]