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| Flickr photo by Laura Wechsler. Creative Commons License.
[Image: East Asian person wearing blue headphones, seen through the door window on a NYC subway car.] |
At TPGA, April is Autism Acceptance Month. In keeping with (and quoting from) The Autistic Self-Advocacy Network’s Autism Acceptance Month project:
“April is Autism Acceptance Month. During Autism Acceptance Month, we
focus on sharing positive, respectful, and accurate information about
autism and autistic people.
“Autism Acceptance Month promotes acceptance and celebration of
autistic people as family members, friends, classmates, co-workers, and
community members making valuable contributions to our world. Autism is a
natural variation of the human experience, and we can all create a
world which values, includes, and celebrates all kinds of minds.
“In a nutshell, Autism Acceptance Month is about treating autistic
people with respect, listening to what we have to say about ourselves,
and making us welcome in the world.”
For Autism Acceptance Month 2016, TPGA would like to focus on Accommodations: things both small and large, simple or effortful, that make the world an easier and less hostile, less stressful place to be an autistic person. Accommodations that people who are not autistic often dismiss, or just don’t get. We want to help spread the word that autism accommodations are real, necessary, and that they matter. That they need to be accepted.
We’ll be publishing autistic-authored autism and accommodation stories each day during the month of April. If you would like to participate, please send us your account of which accommodations make the most difference in your life, and why.
Written submissions should be:
- 250 to 1000 words
- Written in or translated into English
- Your own work; you must own the copyright
We will also accept video or photo-and-voice submissions.
Please email submissions (ideally by March 31, but up to April 15th) to:
Your submission email subject line should read:
- SUBMISSION: AAM 2016: [The Title of Your Essay]
Your submission email body should read as follows:
- Title
- Your Name [the name under which you would like to be published]
- I agree to the submission guidelines for The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism on [date]
- Your preferred contact email
- Your website
- Your brief, one-paragraph bio
- Your text, up to 1000 words
[Updated to add: we will be offering a small honorarium of $20 USD per published post.]
We look forward to hearing from you and sharing your story. We especially appreciate your help in highlighting April as Autism Acceptance Month.
