Autism and the Culture of Publishing

The publishing world is not kind or accommodating to people like me, people on the spectrum who struggle to navigate the neurotypical world and form meaningful connections with others. So much of landing an agent or publisher depends on how well you play the game, and interact with others, but autistic people are notorious for not reading the room properly. Even when they have the ability to interact via email, they struggle at times to understand exactly what is expected of them.  For so long I couldn’t understand why some not so great books found their way onto the shelves at Barnes and Nobel, while my work was repeatedly rejected or ignored. I got an MFA in creative writing and I read the blogs and books and everything else I could in an attempt to learn the ins and outs of querying. But no matter how hard I tried, no matter how focused and dedicated I was, I couldn’t catch anyone’s attention. It didn’t make any sense to me. And then I found out that I am autistic, and suddenly, like everything else in my life, looking at this particular failure through this new lens, things started to click. It’s not my writing that’s the problem. It’s me. 

Conferences that bring publishers, agents, and writers together are pivotal hubs for networking. Some agents won’t even accept queries from writers unless they’ve gone to a conference and met with the agent. This puts autistic people—who are notoriously bad with interpersonal relationships—at a severe disadvantage. Plus, for many, the cost of a conference is prohibitive. They are expensive and autistic people, especially undiagnosed women who never had any support or guidance in understanding how their brains work, tend to be either unemployed or underemployed. For more than a decade, I was unemployed. While I kept busy raising my son, the work I did was unpaid, leaving me with absolutely no spending money. Conferences were beyond my financial reach. Even now, as a teacher, I bring home a decent salary, but I do not have a disposable income. Once the bills are paid, and my son’s needs are met, there is not much money left over. But let’s be honest, even if there was, even if I could afford a couple of conferences a year, the money would get me through the door, but then what? 

I, like many autistic people, do not do well in crowds. The thought of having to enter a space teeming with people with whom I am expected to engage in small talk causes me so much anxiety that I sometimes physically cannot force myself to do it. And if I do push myself to open the door and enter the event, the close proximity of so many people is jarring, and within moments of being enveloped by so many bodies, I’m usually searching for an escape, a place to hide and regroup. The noise, the conversations pulsing in excitement around me, are a source of over stimulation that unsettles me to the point of feeling disoriented. My own body takes up too much space, standing awkwardly alone while everyone else appears confident and comfortable. If only I knew how to initiate a conversation. If only I knew how to engage in small talk, the exchange of meaningless words that helps to establish relationships. But it’s not just my inability to talk on command that inhibits my ability to socialize, it’s also my limited interests, the fact that I struggle to talk about things that don’t matter to me. I don’t mean to be insensitive or distant, I just never learned how to break through the rigidity of my own thoughts.

In short, when it comes to crowds, events with lots of people, what I want most is to disappear. Anxiety suffocates me until I drift to the outer edges, and I press up against the walls almost willing them to swallow me whole. But the purpose of a writing conference is to stand out, to make yourself seen, to catch the eye of an agent or some other person who might be able to help cultivate your career. That’s practically an impossible feat for someone like me, someone for whom the simple task of saying hello to a stranger can be a crippling experience.  How do I make myself appear dynamic and interesting, someone others will want to represent and support, when my instinct is to make myself as invisible as possible? That’s probably the greatest contradiction of my life, wanting to live out loud, make a splash, and stand out, while simultaneously needing to cower in a corner. 

And that’s not even the end of it. If somehow I did manage to secure a meeting with an agent, that would cause even more anxiety. Again, even though one-on-one interactions are far easier than group settings, I, like many autistic people, have difficulty navigating conversations. Too often I have a conversation with someone and my impression of the interaction is different than theirs. I can be social. I can answer direct questions. I can tell fun stories about eclectic experiences. However, just because I can talk, doesn’t mean I am saying the right things, that I am responding as brilliantly or as properly as someone else. Autistic people struggle with social cues and reading facial expressions, I am not an exception to this. I’ve also come to realize that seemingly direct questions are not always as direct as I perceive them to be. They are nuanced, and I miss the subtleties almost every time.  

In short, while conferences may be a mecca of opportunity for neurotypical writers, for us who are autistic, they are a nightmare on multiple levels. I wish I could say other routes to publishing were easier, but they aren’t. Despite having read countless examples of “good query letters,” along with several blogs written by agents expressing what they are looking for, my query letters continuously neglect to catch anyone’s attention. Why? I wish I knew. Perhaps I am overthinking it—again, another autistic trait that is more of a liability than an asset. Am I trying too hard to check every box? Maybe. And that is particularly challenging considering nothing is completely uniform. I have found enough contradicting advice that makes me question every line of every query. Perhaps I am also trying to be precise, a positive trait until it becomes a hurdle to success. Too often I am driven by precision, but when it comes to a query, maybe precision is too much. Getting lost in the details detracts from the point, and isn’t that what agents want? Something short and simple, yet alluring and captivating. Brevity has never been my strength and I overtell even when I try not to. 

Before querying agents or independent publishers, I do my research. I delve into what each agent wants and yet I still can’t get it right. Even if my project seems to align exactly with the publisher’s interests, they reject me. Why? What am I missing? What did I misread or misinterpret? Or do they ever even bother with the slush pile. When they respond saying they have carefully read my materials and have chosen to pass because my project doesn’t elicit enough excitement (a paraphrase not an exact quote) are they telling me the truth? Or is there simply not enough hours in their day for them to waste time on someone they’ve never met. I guess I just want to know if their responses are genuine or kindly worded bullshit. Autistic people tend to be gullible. We believe what we are told, but I’m not sure if when an agent asks me to send them a different project they mean it or if it’s just something they say to mitigate the sting of saying no. Also, when they neglect to respond, is it because they didn’t have any interest, or because they hit delete without reading what I sent in an attempt to clear out their inbox. What should I extract from their silence? Is my writing not good enough? Is my query not tight enough? Or are they simply so busy that taking a few minutes to engage with my text is too taxing? If only I understood people better. If only I could better grasp what I was doing wrong, perhaps I could get it right and find someone to champion my work.

Perhaps part of the problem is my absolute inability to entertain small talk. Like many autistic people, I tend to be direct. Flattery and I have never mixed well. Query letters are supposed to start with a reason as to why that agent would be a good fit. One needs to demonstrate that they are not querying blindly, that they took time to learn who the agent is, what they represent, and what books they’ve taken on in the past. Like always, I do as I’m told, I follow directions, but even I can tell how forced my first few lines always feel. I’ve never been gifted when it comes to knowing what to say, which is why I generally choose silence. 

For some writers, virtual pitch events provide an avenue to success, but again these events are not super friendly to people on the spectrum. It is hard enough reading social cues and facial expressions in person, trying to do so via a screen adds another layer of complexity. I don’t feel comfortable communicating virtually with most people. My mother and my son might be the only exceptions. When I log into Zoom meetings, I always have my camera off and I never speak, not unless asked a direct question, because I don’t know how to determine when it’s my turn to say something, and I don’t want to be perceived as rude by cutting someone off. Zoom just makes it too easy to do what I’m best at—hiding in plain sight. Even if I was given a set time to speak to a specific agent, I would struggle to sound normal. There’s absolutely no chance I’d pull off a persuasive tone. Info dumping is my go to under pressure, and in the short bit of time allotted to me, I’d end up sounding like a bumbling idiot. Sure I could prepare something short, but what if the agent asked me a question and derailed me from my script? I absolutely suck at thinking quickly and summoning a brilliant response on cue. I need time to mull things over and draft my responses. I’m not charming, and most times I look bored because I’m thinking too hard to remember to smile. And I don’t always understand the questions. Even simple ones trip me up. I can be honest or on point; I never learned how to do both simultaneously. On a screen, with limited time to convey the essence of my book and present myself as someone an agent would want to work with, I would, without a doubt, fall flat.

Finally, rejection sensitive dysphoria affects many autistic people, including me. Sure everyone hates being rejected. Who wouldn’t? It sucks no matter how you spin it. But some autistic people feel rejection far more acutely than neurotypical folks, and since we can’t simply shake it off, it weighs us down, complicating other aspects of our lives. Each time I read a rejection email from an agent, I feel nauseated. Energy drains from my body as if a cork has been pulled from a bottle. I can’t stand. My brain momentarily stops processing information and I have to remind myself to breathe. And if I get hit with two in one day, I shut down. The intensity of my reactions has cost me friends who have told me to get over it. That rejection is just a part of life. My spouse used to repeatedly tell me to quit writing. The bouts of depression that often follow a series of rejections is paralyzing, and for her the cure was simple. Give up what I enjoy because obviously the pain wasn’t worth it. In other words, stop being me so that I can better function in this neurotypical world.  

But it’s not just actual rejection that we find crippling. Perceived rejection also negatively impacts the decisions we make. I’m afraid to assess how many times I’ve self sabotaged because not doing something—not sending the email, not reaching out to another writer, not entering a contest—ensures that I won’t get rejected. I won’t end up in bed trying to convince myself that tomorrow is another day and maybe, just maybe, if I don’t give up someone will actually want me. The only definite way to prevent a “no,” is to avoid asking for something you want. But when you don’t ask, when you don’t put yourself forward, you’ll never get a “yes” either.

For thirty years I’ve been trying to make something of myself. For twelve years, I’ve been in overdrive writing, querying, and praying feverishly that someone somewhere will read my work and feel moved enough to want to represent it. I now have a better understanding as to why I feel destined to fail. In my entire life, connecting with others has been a struggle. If I can’t connect with people in my everyday existence, what ever made me think I’d ever have a chance at connecting with an agent. Autism, of course, is a spectrum, and I’m sure there are autistic people for whom the process of finding an agent or a publisher is less daunting, less discouraging. After all, autistic people have been published. I wish I knew what their secrets were. How they managed to make themselves and their work appealing. Perhaps it’s easier for people who were diagnosed younger. People who had support, someone to help them overcome the countless issues that make life more challenging for people like me. If only I’d known I was autistic a decade or two ago, my life could have been so different—better in so many ways. At this point, I’m beginning to wonder if it might just be best to quit. To tuck away my dream of being an author, and instead focus on surviving. Living day to day in a world that never did make much sense to me.