Monday 2nd October 2023: On Queer Neurodivergent Writing – Out on the Page collaborations

Hi everyone!

So, when I said I was busy before September, I wasn’t lying. Here’s another project of mine.

Sometimes things come onto my path. I’ve learned to be a bit jammy and see how they may go. By January 2023, I had been collating interviews for Feeling Fast and Slow for about 5 months. I’d also been working on Teeming for about five years by that point. Frankly, it was time to do something, finding more of a community. So for the first and final time, an Instagram advert made a difference to my life.

It didn’t actually, someone I was already following shared it. But I thought it would be a fun kind of fake-out joke.

Anyway, I went to the Out on the Page writers café on Zoom, where I was able to chat to Paul, its founder. I said that it might be a good idea to run a neurodivergent queer writers’ group, because of my experiences at normal (read: neurotypical) writers groups, and those of others like me.

Why? There’s just something about us, that makes our thought patterns be taken less seriously. Our characters, narrative styles, even the language that we use; all are seen as less worthy, “kooky”, “different” or something else patronising, all the while seeing our peers receive praise for similar or worse writing than we present. Of course these experiences are personal and not borne out by academic research (yet), rather, this perspective is evidenced by a large group of neurodivergent people all having similar experiences.

Wanna Be Starting Something

So Paul gave me the green light. I needed to come up with a structure and a plan for how I would run this first group, in June 2023. I spent a lot of time getting the slides to work and the structure of the session to manifest itself. I knew I could do it, I’d done it before. I used to teach stand-up comedy when I was at UCL and I know how to run creative writing groups. Here, I would be combining my skills as a facilitator, a writing teacher and a mentor in a field that I’m committed to changing. In the same way as the Autism Experience Group and the Autistic Wellbeing Group, I want to create a space for neurodivergent queer writers, focusing on different genres but allowing for choice in what people wanted to do with their time.

Having worked as an EAP teacher (more about that in a subsequent blog), I know how to wangle Zoom and I know my way around a breakout room. The rest would be up to the participants. They would have the choice as to whether to write to a prompt or to practice their own writing, either alone or with others in a breakout room. After that, we’d have a discussion. As usual, all I’d have to do is over-prepare.

So I did. With amazing insights from Ennis Welbourne and Joanne Limburg, I created the structure of the groups going forward and we met in June, as a part of Autistic Pride.

And?

Well? It was a success and a half. It was the most successful event in the history of Out on the Page, over 50 queer neurodivergent writers registered and over 30 attending. I knew there would be a market for this, and there was. So what next?

Paul and I want to continue with the momentum created in June, so we will be making an Arts Council Funding application for 2024-25. However, in the short term, Arts Council England won’t be able to fund us. As we are committed to keep the QND Writers’ Group free at the point of use, we have to find money in order for us to be paid for our time. It’s important that we are, because if we accept that our work should be done for free, that does nothing to dislodge queer neurodivergent writing from its current position. We had a discussion with a few group members after another OOTP writers’ café and decided to fundraise, writing a statement as to our plans and our beliefs, all to be found in the link below.

This is where you come in. If you have a spare grand and a half lying around somewhere or are excited about providing a space for queer neurodivergent writing, don’t hesitate, donate!

Donate | Queer Neurodivergent Writers Group | Outonthepage

I would make an excellent Tupperware party host. If you don’t have the capacity to donate right now, please share with your connections or on the hellish post-apocalyptic landscapes that we once called social media.

I cannot wait to put this project into its next phase. Let’s write ourselves into a revolution.

All the love,

Jorik