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A is for Anthology, C is for Collaborations, P is for Projects (and Passion)....

 I recently received my copies of Kyra Anderson and Vicki Forman's amazing book Gravity Pulls You In -- a collection of essays about parenting kids on the autism spectrum. The book contains one of the most personal and passionate essays I've ever written (As Great as Trees), an essay about the difficult time leading up to my youngest child's diagnosis with Aspergers syndrome. Once we had the diagnosis, we could start stumbling towards a new normal.

This is the fourth time I've had the opportunity to contribute to an anthology. I've discovered that I'm totally hooked. I love being part of the collaborative process that results in the birth of a multi-authored collection of writing. 

 So if you're planning an anthology and you think I might have something valuable to contribute, let me know. I'd love to do more of this type of writing. 

I'm also eager to collaborate on other projects (in a variety of media). So if you have a project that screams out for a writer who cares passionately about people and trying to do her bit to fix this imperfect world of ours, give me a shout via this link (which deliberately contains a very obvious typo in an attempt to slow down the spam-bots just a little).

Errors, Omissions, and, Please, Bring Me Up to Date on Your Life....

First things first. I've created a parenting resources section, which contains a lot of the content which used to be housed on the old blog. This way, I could make room for a lot of new content. (See the top right-hand corner of the blog for a list of pages.) If your link was on the old blog, would you please check to see if the link is still up-to-date? If you know your link should be there (because you know I adore you), but it's not, would you please add it to the comments section of that page? That way, I can tackle all the cleanup all at once (one of the reasons I switched to TypePad: to make my blogging life a whole lot simpler).

Secondly, it's almost a year to the day since my son's Aspergers syndrome diagnosis. I'm starting to feel like my life is getting back on track. (That's just part of the story, but it's enough for you to grasp in one sentence!) I'm finally starting to reach out to the outside world again after a year of quiet reflection and a lot of thinking and learning on many, many fronts. (I'll be writing a lot about this, both on and off the blog.)

But here's my question for you. How have you been? What's new with you?

Worth Noting: Reaching an Autistic Teenager by Melissa Fay Greene: New York Times Magazine

“You meet one child with autism and, well, you’ve met one child with autism,” says Linda Brandenburg, the director of school autism services at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Maryland. Given the wide range of expression in autism and related disorders, there is no one-size-fits-all intervention. “We now know that there are several different models that seem to work — some more behavioral, some more developmental, some more eclectic,” Dr. Fred R. Volkmar, director of the Yale Child Study Center, told me. “What we really need to be doing, what the law says, is design programs around the kids rather than force kids into a program.”
- Melissa Fay Greene, Reaching an Autistic Teenager, New York Times Magazine