Beth

For a long time, I didn’t really take notes as I read. I didn’t know how . But over the years, I built a process of notetaking that was mostly underlining and writing gay in the margins.

I also believe her spirit contacted me (!) while I was working on the book.

So I did what (some) autistic people do: I dug in my heels, and I got my receipts.

Let’s have discovering and nurturing our true selves become our special interest — and I promise you, together we will see a better world be revealed in our lifetime.

Sometimes maybe it’s best, in art and writing, to be as dumb as possible, follow the joy, because at the very least that's real. And there, you’ve taken the first step towards the truth.

The recurring hypocrisy makes me wonder: Do we *actually* not want people to go through what we went through....or do we secretly think what we went through is foundational to good work?

Characters like Nikolai and Stoner, who react to life more often than they “take action”—whatever that term means—are often labeled by my students as passive characters. Sometimes a student is advised by his or her peers to give characters “higher stakes” or “more agency .” This tends to lead me to groan internally. Isn’t living from day to day eno... See more