Links Mentioned in This Episode:

Motherness: A Memoir of Generational Autism, Parenthood, and Radical Acceptance

Julie Green’s Website

The Resilient Writers Radio Show: Interview with Julie M. Green – Full Episode Transcript

Intro:

Well, hey there, Writer. Welcome to The Resilient Writers Radio Show. I'm your host, Rhonda Douglas. And this is the podcast for writers who want to create and sustain a writing life they love. 

Because let's face it, the writing life has its ups and downs, and we want to not just write, but also to be able to enjoy the process so that we'll spend more time with our butt-in-chair getting those words on the page. 

This podcast is for writers who love books and everything that goes into the making of them. For writers who want to learn and grow in their craft and improve their writing skills. Writers who want to finish their books and get them out into the world so their ideal readers can enjoy them. Writers who want to spend more time in that flow state. 

Writers who want to connect with other writers to celebrate and be in community, in this crazy roller coaster ride, we call the writing life. We are resilient writers. We're writing for the rest of our lives and we're having a good time doing it. So welcome, Writer. I'm so glad you're here. Let's jump right into today's show.

Rhonda:

Well, hey there, Writer. Welcome back to another episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show. I'm really excited to have Julie M. Green with me today. So, uh Julie uh has written a book called The Autistic Mom, and it explores what it means to navigate motherhood, identity, and neurodiversity through the lens of radical acceptance. 

Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, HuffPost, The Globe and Mail, Parents Magazine, Chatelaine, Today's Parent, and more.

She shared her story on CTV, CBC Radio, BBC, Global News and SiriusXM. And in 2024, she was a finalist for the CBC Nonfiction Prize. Congratulations. That's amazing. 

Julie:

Thank you. Thank you. 

Rhonda:

So her memoir is called Motherness and it's about generational autism, parenthood and radical acceptance. So Julie, how did you end up coming to write this memoir in the first place? 

Julie:

Yeah. Long convoluted process. I'll try to make it quick. It took about 10 years. There was a 10 year gap between the time my son was diagnosed and the time between, you know, when I received a diagnosis, I was in my mid-forties when the big light bulb went off and I had a formal diagnosis. 

And I just in some ways couldn't reconcile, you know, how autism looked in my son versus how it looked in me as a late diagnosed woman. And this kind of thing happens when you're diagnosed late in life that you start to look back, you know, and all these memories from your childhood, you know, adolescence, early adulthood. 

And I thought, you know, I'm not obviously this is the, the work of memoir, you realize this is not only my story. This is clearly a pattern we're seeing a lot of that parents are actually realizing late in life and they're realizing through their kids. So it's this strange phenomena. 

So I'd written a lot about parenting. As you said, I was a staff writer for a parenting magazine and then I was freelancing for many years. So I had done a lot of the parenting writing. I'd published a lot of essays and that sort of thing. 

And I thought, well, there's so much material here to talk about parenting, but also to have this secondary narrative running through that looks at, you know, my own experiences growing up and as an adult, you know, in the workplace and the different things that I experienced. 

So that's basically how I landed on uh the shape of Motherness because you have these sort of two concurrent narratives. uh But I can talk more about, you know, the craft side of things if you're interested, but the idea for the book kind of came out of me just trying to reconcile, um know, how is this the same diagnosis? 

My son is so, there are similarities, but there were so many differences. So I liken it to a Venn diagram, essentially, um but the book was this process, I guess, this reckoning of how it looked for me and also how the parenting experience was being autistic myself and trying to advocate for my child.

Rhonda:

Yeah, I can understand that. So I think you have in common, you know, uh a late diagnosis of being neurodivergent with a lot of women. Can you tell us a little bit about what your experience was like?

Julie:

Um, yeah, I mean, I think there's so much coming about with this in terms of ADHD and autism, because it was just, it looks so different in girls. And this only recently that, you know, clinicians and everyone is, is coming to see how it can present differently, how girls and women often mask. 

Or you know, we had this image for ADHD and autism both that, know, well, this is the domain of sort of either little hyperactive boys or in the case of ADHD or in autism, know, it's um maybe boys, you know, lining up trains and uh hand flapping and definitely not being able to make eye contact, definitely not having friends. 

But I think with girls, there's a lot to unpack there. It just looks somewhat different and you have to scratch the surface. doesn't adhere to the stereotypes we've been given. So it only in the last maybe five, 10 years, we're painting a fuller picture of how it can look in girls and women. 

More people are, as a result, more people are being identified, even, you know, girls from a younger age, but also in my case, know, women in their 20s, 30s, 40s, even, even older.

Rhonda:

Yeah, I hear a lot of folks being um late diagnosed with various forms of neurodivergence.

Can you tell me a little bit about um how being diagnosed changed anything for you in terms of either yourself as a writer, your relationships, anything at all? 

Julie:

Oh gosh, um it's.. On a personal level, it's huge because it reframes um how you think of yourself. So many of us as children grow up thinking, oh, well, um in my case, I was extremely studious and I worked very, very hard, but I also did everything to sort of not get noticed. 

And I also internalized a lot of like, why am I so awkward? Why don't I understand this? Why are friendships so difficult? There’s a lot of whole layers of things socially that I had a lot of social confusion and things I didn't understand. 

Fortunately, the bullying I experienced wasn't super extreme compared to some, you, I think knowing, um knowing the reason for it uh is a big healing process because you can challenge the these ideas that you had that, you know, I'm lazy or I'm difficult or I'm weird or whatever. 

So it's a real bomb, I think, for your self esteem, actually, to understand what's driving these differences and not taking it as like a personal failing. So in a personal sense, that was huge. 

In terms of writing, I've always been a reader and writer. I've used books to try to understand people. So it's always been more of an escape from the overwhelm of the world as well. So I'd often be, if we were away visiting any family or something, 

I'd always be the one with the nose in the book, you know, the bookworm. 

And I did enjoy reading, but for me, was an escape from the sensory and social overwhelm, but it was also a means to try to understand, because you could get right inside a character's head. So I could study this and know, be fascinated like whether it was like Margaret Atwood, like Cat’s Eye or The Catcher in the Rye. 

It was like I'd had this front row seat just try to understand and interpret some of these confusing relationships. And I had always, I was always writing as well, trying to process things. It's always been my way of processing things. 

So not so much journals, but poetry. And then, you know, I ended up studying writing and then writing professionally about parenting and kind of current events and mental health. So those are really important for me. 

So as I was trying to process my own diagnosis and what it meant naturally, that was going to happen for me. I didn't have everything already figured out and sit down to write for me the process of trying to figure out these things happens when I sit down to write.

So initially I think writing the memoir was for me. then when you see the bigger pattern that it may be beneficial to other people, then you open it up and think, okay, this may be a book. This may be, we may have to turn the private into something public, even though it's quite uncomfortable. know, the book is very raw. 

I've been told it's very raw. It's very honest. I don't always give myself an easy time in the book. So that's something you wrestle with. think my Morris wrestle with because I think the good of sharing the universal elements of your story kind of take precedence over the sort of personal discomfort that you might feel and any misgivings you feel about putting yourself out there. 

Cause that's definitely someone who is very normally very private um that all flips that all flips once it's published. And there's this strange disconnect the whole years, you know, I was working with my editor, that was all fine. But for some reason, it didn't fully clue in that everybody is going to be reading this and contacting you and saying, oh and they know all this stuff now, which is it's kind of a strange, strange thing to reconcile. 

But obviously also very worth it, because I've had a lot of people contacting me and reaching out and saying, oh my gosh, I cried, I feel so seen. I've not seen anyone whose story echoes what I've been through. So for me, that's worth any discomfort that I may feel. 

Rhonda:

Right. I I think you have that in common with all memoirists, but I can definitely see how people would see that, see themselves possibly in there.

So the book is called Motherness and the subtitle is A Memoir of Generational Autism, Parenthood, and Radical Acceptance. So um I'm interested in the title, Motherness. Why did we, why that word in particular? 

Julie:

Yeah, initially I had a very drab title and then my editor and I were sort of bouncing back and forth and I didn't like any of her suggestions. And then she really did not, I had to really make a case for Motherness because, you know, inventing words and single word titles are, um she was really like bristling against that. 

And I said, no, I really do feel in this case, it works because the whole idea of being other is so central to my experience and, you know, combining that with my, it's, um I really felt strongly about that. 

And then, you know, she and the editorial team brought the subtitle and I thought, okay, that's fair. So you get one, I get one. And that works. It's a bit of a mouthful, but I think it really encompasses what the story is about. 

Rhonda:

Talk to me a little bit about the idea of radical acceptance in this journey.

Julie:

Yeah, it was important to me, particularly, I mean, things are getting, or we're getting a little bit better in terms of how autism is represented, but it's always been such a binary, it's always been seen as either a real superpower and, you know, the savant thing that you've got from Rain Man, The Good Doctor and all this. 

So it's either, you know, that side of things or in terms of parenting, it's a tragedy and it's the cross that parents have to bear. And so it was very important for me to just redress that balance and that binary. so like, is a really complex experience. um It's neither good nor bad. just is. Some days it's very difficult. Some days autism is very difficult.

But there are also, there are great joys that come with that. There's a lot of humor as well in the book that I was very conscious to add because I didn't want to just write another autism book that supports one of these narratives because they're just not realistic. 

And for me, the idea is yes, autism at times is extremely... difficult because we live in such an ableist society and we're constantly up against struggles and systems that aren't made for us. But the idea of acceptance is, think as a parent is really the only way, and as a person for me having to come to terms with this in midlife. 

It has been acceptance is really paramount. It's paramount to my connection with my child. But it's also paramount to my relationship with myself going forward. So that's where the, piece comes in. 

Rhonda:

Thanks so much for that. I'd love to talk to you a little bit about the process of pulling the memoir together. it, I'm hearing you say that it began with these essays that you had, but then there was a whole other side that you still had to write. Can you talk to me a little bit about the process? 

Julie:

Yeah, I think. I think that's the sort of misunderstanding or maybe not misunderstanding, but I think often people don't associate nonfiction and memoir with the same level of craft as fiction, but it's still, even though you're recounting real events, it's so far removed from, you know, a journal, let's say this happened to stop, it's, you know, dear diary, this is what I ate, or this is how so-and-so said this, and this is how I felt about it.

So much I think was finding, I call it the container, but finding the structure of how this was going to work because I had these different essays and I had my own experiences and I thought, well, what if I do this kind of compare and contrast and I structure the book in terms of different aspects of autism. 

So each section or chapter is based on a different element of, I guess, the autistic experience or autistic trait, you know, sensory challenges or sensory differences,  know, giftedness, eating and food, gender. 

So and then once I had that sort of framework, it was a lot easier to sit down and go, okay, well, this is kind of my son's experience of having a special interest. And then this was my experience and just sort of layering that. So the parenting scenes are more generally are the present scenes. 

And then obviously that's interspersed with a little bit of research, not heavy research and reporting, just enough to kind of give some context. And that's also, you know, threaded in through there are my own experiences from various points from, you know, from childhood to, I guess, early adulthood before I had my son.

Rhonda:

And were you always aware it was going to be a book length project? Like were you always trying to pull something together into a cohesive whole that could be a book? Were you always aiming for that? 

Julie:

I guess, yeah, once I had that, once I had that vision of that container, I felt like it could. I have the opposite problem to a lot of writers because I don't overwrite. I tend to be really on the always on the concise end of things. 

So I think there were a few errors. You know, my editor, um Jen Sookfong Lee was fantastic. She'd say, you know, can you flesh this out a little more or like make, feels like you need to make an extra connection here. 

So there were a few spots where maybe I, to be honest, it just made it, I think it just crept into around the 68, 70, just about maybe shy of 70 K once you added the research, but I do tend to be on the shorter end of things, but that works for me. 

Rhonda:

Can you tell me a little bit about the research? How did you decide to integrate research on autism into the book? Because for most memoir, there might be a context to the story but most people are just, they're just telling their own story, but you felt that it was necessary to kind of bring the reader along to, Hey, you know, here's the latest research. 

Julie:

Well, this is it too. I mean, autism is very complex and the research is always evolving. So even people who are in this world and in this community, they were coming to me saying, Oh, there were things in there that I, there was research and things and connections that I didn't know about.

But I mean, it was my hope as well that it wouldn't just be a book for people in the autism community. would be a book that people would pick up who maybe didn't have firsthand knowledge of autism. So I wanted to sort of give just enough background without making it a heavy, feeling like a heavy reported piece. 

I didn't interview anybody or anything like that. It was just enough to give a bit of context without making it too dry as well, but enough that people picking it up for the first time who maybe don't know a ton about autism. They could glean just enough information that would also explain some of the experiences we were having. 

Because I don't think without that, it necessarily would have made sense. know, why was my son behaving like this or why was I reacting a certain way? I think without context, um that would be, it would be really confusing. 

So I just spliced in enough to make it coherent, I think, to people, but without it becoming very bogged down or sounding too academic. I reference studies, but not in a very heavy-handed academic way. 

Rhonda:

Right. I think a lot of memoirs kind of struggle with research. It's like, do I do any? If I do, how much do I do? And how do I splice it in?

So can you say a little bit more about how you integrated the research? It's within the passage, right? Like if you're talking about something, then you're referencing the research. Does that make sense? Yeah. 

Julie:

Yeah. Like often uh I'd have a scene where, you know, something happens, say, you know, my son has a meltdown at the beach, for instance. That's one of the scenes. Darn, spoiler.

And then, so that scene is very immediate. It's usually in second person as well because I want people to sort of step into ah my shoes and really, um that was another choice I made just to sort of mix things up. And then, so that would transition straight into a short section, like generally a few paragraphs explaining this is what a meltdown is. This is why it happens. This is what goes on in the nervous system, you know, to, create that, that situation. 

And then it would go to maybe one of my experiences growing up. So it jumps around, but I think in a way that is easy, people told me anyway, that it's easy enough to follow, but it's, I guess, also nice that it's, you don't have these massive long chunks of research. 

You don't have these really long segments of second person because people It can be alienating, can either really work, but if you do it too much as a device, I think it can be annoying, uh depending on the person, but I think just enough of that balance. I hope.

Rhonda:

So tell me a little bit about your publishing journey. The book is out with ECW Press. They do beautiful memoirs, I think. I think they're really a place in certainly in Canada to go for, you know, an interesting memoir. Were they the only publisher you spoke to or just tell me a little bit about your journey to get it published? 

Julie:

Yeah, so going way back, I mean, I initially thought I was, uh I studied writing and I was a fiction writer originally and had an agent many years ago for like a YA novel and then basically that didn't get off the ground because this was around the time my son was diagnosed and I was just extremely overwhelmed with trying to support him and that became my priority. 

And then I ended up freelancing and writing and it just went on the back burner. So really I ended up writing these essays and just they're out there and I thought, well, that's a lot of material. So again, put the book together. Yeah, it wasn't really ever thinking that I was going to write nonfiction at all. 

It was never even a consideration for me. But when the book did come together, I did some research and I didn't really feel it was a very personal decision for me, but I didn't really feel like I needed an agent. And I thought, you know what, I would really like to go with an independent. 

And like you say, Canada has some great indie publishers. I did approach, I did research and I approached a few and I really got hooked on the idea of ECW because I really wanted to work with Jen Sookfong Lee because I knew of her work and I knew of her memoir Superfan, which was I really loved. 

So that was a decision to skip the agenting process, but it was also very daunting because you're there in the slush pile and you know, especially for nonfiction, I don't have a huge platform like I've, I've done some freelance writing, but I'm not an influencer, you know, I don't have 1000s and 1000s of following. 

I was a bit concerned about that. But she was a real champion for parenting memoirs and she had a background as well uh in disability. So she just struck me as the perfect choice and you know, ECW quite well, well known and well respected. They've been around for a long time. 

So really she said she liked the book, but it was sort of a yes, but not quite. I was devastated and went away for a little while. And I then sort of approached her again and said, Look, if I, I know, and I don't, I don't want to recommend this, because it's probably not the done thing. 

But I said, Look, if I revise this slightly, would you maybe consider having another look? Because at that point, the structure and the style and the writing wasn't quite up to where it needed to be.

And she said, okay, which was very generous of her. So as soon as I revised it, I think I took a couple of months, sent it off to her and then it was like, oh yes, absolutely I want it. So um yeah, probably not a really common process or something to recommend normally when an editor says no, but I just.

Rhonda:

But I love that you went back and said, what if I did a little bit more work? 

Julie:

I know, because I just, I don't know, there was something about it. And I just felt like she was the right person to work with. And, know, very graciously, I'm really happy that she agreed to look again, because I think it was, I think she was very keen. 

It's just she just felt it was not quite there. So and then um got it, we got it there. And um had a had a great time working together. So that was really, that was that process. 

Rhonda:

Nice. Okay. And oh where are things sitting with you now? I mean, you said you were, you had originally, you were doing some YA once upon a time and now you've come out with uh a book of nonfiction. Are you going to stay with nonfiction? Are you thinking of something else? 

Julie:

Well, I actually am 99% of the way finished a second nonfiction. I've got a second memoir that's um like somewhat autism related, but not heavily, not as heavily. So that we will see if I can um sell that. And I actually would like to go back to fiction. 

I do have two novels in the drawer as everybody has that still have legs and they still have merit, I just have to take another look at them. And again, with letting something sit a long time, I can now maybe see um what it will take to get them where they need to be. 

And, you know, it's very difficult when there are massive things that you might need to change and it needs so much room to breathe before you can look back and actually see with clarity when you need a major rewrite or some major structural change. 

But I also just never felt, it never sat well with me to just abandon it completely. I know some writers do that. They're like, oh, that one didn't work. Okay, I'll start another, I'll start another. And it's their fourth book, their fourth book ends up being their first that's published. But I have real trouble killing my darlings for good. 

I like to at least, you know, resurrect some element of it, even if it takes a different form, it feels too wasted all the time and energy. And there's still, I think, there's still so much value in those stories. So I have a real hard time parting with them completely to start something entirely new. 

I mean, they may end up completely rewritten, but I think the general storyline and the character. I hope they see the light of day.

Rhonda:

Yeah, it's a lot of time to spend on something, isn't it? To let it languish in a drawer. Yeah, absolutely. 

Julie:

I mean, some people are super prolific and they just do that and they have tons, but I never, I'm not the sort of, I'm a lot of, I'm a slower plotter and I don't get as many ideas. So I feel, and I get very, very attached to the ideas I have. 

So this particular character, I'm like, he will, he will be out there someday. He'll be ancient, he'll probably be, you know, as old as I am sitting around, but he will, he will, I'm kind of determined to, but whatever order it happens in, I don't know, I would just be, you know, very, and there are never any assurances, right? 

I mean, I, I hope that something will come next, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, I hope, I hope there will be another project and that, you know, it will land with people in the same way. I'm just very, you know, very fortunate, but yeah, I mean, nobody, think in this day and age has a very, I mean, maybe few people do, but a very clear cut straight process. 

You know, maybe they were nonfiction writers who ended up writing fiction or end up or poetry and ended up writing something else, or maybe it's their, as I said, their fourth or fifth book. And then, you know, who knows it's, it's not the most linear journey. But that's not why we do it, we don't do it, because it's easy or. 

Rhonda:

Straightforward. 

Julie:

Exactly. 

Rhonda:

Exactly. Yeah. Great. Well, thanks so much for being with me today, Julie. This has been a really great chat. I really appreciate it. 

Julie:

Thank you for having me.

Outro:

Thanks so much for hanging out with me today and for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show. While you're here, I would really appreciate it if you'd consider leaving a rating and review of the show. You can do that in whatever app you're using to listen to the show right now, and it just takes a few minutes. 

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