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Seven years ago, when my two-year-old son Leo was declared "autistic," it was difficult to find books about his many possible futures. The most popular 2003 autism books from parents' perspectives -- Catherine Maurice's Let Me Hear Your Voice, and Karyn Seroussi's Unraveling the Mystery of Autism -- were tales of hope, but also of autism conquered and cured. After a couple of years, we began to realize that our son's experience would be different, would be one of more modest miracles like learning to say "no," swimming, and eating apples. So we starting searching for stories like ours, like our son's.
Those stories slowly emerged. Temple Grandin's Thinking in Pictures told us how to see Leo as a person rather than a project. The parents' accounts at the end of Catherine Maurice's ABA therapy handbook Behavioral Intervention for Young Children With Autism told of children gaining skills instead of shedding labels. Denise Minor shared her astonishment at her son's eye contact and bike riding as a contributor to Because I Said So. Susan Senator permitted Making Peace With Autism. Rupert Isaacson recognized and did his utmost to support his son's strengths and skills in The Horse Boy.
And now we have Kyra Anderson's and Vicki Forman's beautifully written Gravity Pulls You In, a collection of "perspectives on parenting children on the autism spectrum." It is the book I can finally point to and say, "Yes, this here -- this will give you a sense of what autism is really about, why 'autism' has no one meaning, how our families' and children's joys, pain, love, sorrow, realities feel. Yes. This will help you understand. And if you're a parent new to the world of autism, this will light your way."
I have to warn you -- Gravity Pulls You In is an emotional neutron star. It turned me inside out, had me weeping in both awe and anguish, and I quickly learned not to read it in public. While I mooned over Drama Mama's, Carolyn Walker's, and Emily Willingham's love letters to their children, even the stories that wrung me dry, like Maggie Kast's No Pity, or Ralph James Savarese's You're Adopting Whom? exude love, pride -- and such grace. As contributor Cheri Brackett came to write about herself, Gravity Pulls You In is a testament to parents "valiant and remarkably dedicated."
Here is what Kyra Anderson had to say about her wonderful book:
Where did you get the idea for Gravity Pulls You In? Why did you think it was needed?
I was feeling isolated in my parenting journey. It wasn’t like those of the moms around me. I felt marginalized, left out of the conversation. I struggled to find community, real life community.
At the time, the books I found were either 'cure' books, 'how to' books or 'cup of comfort' books and even though I found value in them, I longed for something more universal.
Vicki and I started talking about putting together a literary collection of writing about parenting kids on the spectrum where the writing was about autism and wasn't about autism, where the stories transported us to somewhere deeper, somewhere transformative. We thought about how many families were affected by autism and all the people whose lives intersected with theirs: extended family, neighbors, friends, teachers, therapists. We knew we couldn’t be the only ones who'd want to read it.
What can you tell us about your publishing process? Were there any surprises along the way? Do you have any hard-earned wisdom to share with writers inspired by your publishing success?
The two biggest surprises were how straight-forward the steps were and how much time the whole process took. We put out our first call for submissions in the fall of 2006, signed our contract with Woodbine in the fall of 2008 and didn’t have the book in our hands until just a couple of weeks ago, early February, 2010.
The most exciting step was gathering the material. I was moved by every submission we received. The most difficult step was writing the book proposal. I had never written one before, had made it the 'forbidden territory,' the place where only real writers tread. I asked Vicki if I could take it on, knowing I clearly had some old misperceptions to unearth!
I put out an SOS on my blog looking for life coaches. I interviewed four, sampled their 'mini-coaching' sessions and chose the one who got me
