Saturday, March 20, 2010

My NPR interview recycled

I just found out that the NPR show Studio 360 has recycled my interview on the national radio show studio 360 from a number of years ago, about the novel "The school of Hard Knocks" that I wrote. I think this interview first aired at about the end of 2002 then was rebroadcast in the beginning of 2003. Though my novel was not able to be published I was able to read excerpts from it on this show. Then I guess about two years ago, portions of my interview were recycled for another show that studio 360 was doing about autism. They also discuss The conversion which is a short story I wrote several years ago, just before I wrote the novel.

Well, though the interview is several years old now I guess anyone who is interested in checking it out and hearing what I sound like or whatever can click on the above link or go to studio 360's web page at www.studio360.org. Also I have the interview someplace on my Jonathan's stories website which has a couple of links on this blog though I don't have the exact URL handy. I guess the interview will run in various parts of the country on various days this week until Thursday but I am not sure.

Well I guess anyone interested can check it out and/or read "The conversion" which I linked to above.

4 comments:

SM69 said...

Thanks Jonathan for the link, the interview was interesting. Funny you should mention Charles Bukowski, yes, success in relationships and sexual encounters are not that related to physical attraction, the mind and creativity especially are a lot more attractive than this still! (to women at least!). Asperger minds are attractive to some too, the rawness and uniqueness, independence, isolation, however, yes I agree some behavioral issues can affect the chance of a relationship.

If I look back on books written by autistic people, including the ones that are written by those who have adopted the label of autism, they tend to include stories that are revealing about their self, how they see the world, how they have overcome difficulties etc. The only fictions stories I have read are either of pure poetry or taken within close context of the people’s life, embedded into a more global meaning that acts like a staple to the reader. You might know better though, I have not have read everything. Fictions stories, irrespectively of the writer’s condition, need to be very special to stand on their own, writing skills, language, images, relevance to the reader, stories. Pretty hard to brake through with this alone I think, even with autism as a label. What about looking more closely at some of the themes discussed in the interviews, anger, resentment, fantasies, but with more self-analytical elements, perhaps working through them as anyone’s personal developments? I think this could help people to relate to the sort of writing you do; I remember having a laugh at your letter to Monica Lewinski, but the letter would be a lot more powerful still if it was embedded in a story that reveals more clearly the motivations, mind and themes of interest of the writer. I hope my thoughts are not offending you.

SM69 said...

I wanted to correct my wordings because I don't think these would really come across as I meant them. First of all, I meant to say that I found the story on Monica Lewinski you wrote had a lot of humor. Also, I wanted to say that the suggestions I made are difficult for anyone, especially for someone on the spectrum. I did not mean to underestimate what it implies. I would not mind people sharing what they feel makes a writing from an ASD person more likely to be publishable.

Rick Bruner said...

Hello Jonathan. I heard the story on Studio 360 today and found my way to your blog as a result. I'd be interested to read some of your fiction. I'll seek some of that out.

I haven't read through your archive of posts yet, so maybe this is something you've written about before, but given your desire for romance and sex described in the radio piece, I wonder if dating with the "autism community" (if you can call it that) is much of a common practice. Just a thought.

Anyway, looking forward to reading more of your stuff. BTW, do you use Twitter? I don't see a link here from your blog.

jonathan said...

Hi, Rick, with a 4:1 ratio of autistic men to women and about a 10:1 ratio in the higher functioning ASD's, no dating is not too common in the autism community.

You can check out my short stories and some other writing at www.jonathans-stories.com also I have a twitter page:

www.twitter.com/autismgadfly.

Thanks for listening to my show