Asking for a friend. No, really.

[mrissa]

A friend is looking for a short story that fits the following parameters: "It's about an autistic girl who is with her mother at a convention, I think, and gets whisked away to Faerie by some kind of imp who implies everything will suit her, and in the end the girl comes back to her mother."

Any thoughts on what story that is/where it might be found? Other discussion of fictional handlings of autism reasonably welcome in the comments, especially if you can flag the "ugh no stop it does not work like that" examples.

Comments

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I forget the title and author, but I think it was published by Strange Horizons about 2-3 years ago. It might have been an alien rather than an imp.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

http://www.strangehorizons.com/2013/20130902/rules-f.shtml

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

I don't recognize that story, but for another fictional handling of autism there's "Air Guitar" by Mad Robins in "Tales From the House Band".

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, but that's not the story you want, obviously. I don't know what they did right or wrong in the book but it was a pretty good read.

[the_rck]

If you don't find it another way, you might try whatwasthatbook. People frequently ask about short stories there as well as about books. It's not certain that someone would know, but it's a community with a lot of members, so there often is someone who knows.

[moiread]

We found it! The guess above about Strange Horizons was right. http://www.strangehorizons.com/2013/20130902/rules-f.shtml

Thank you so much for helping me ask around.

On reread, I am not as impressed with it as I was the first time, so if people have better suggestions of short YA-oriented SF/F stories that feature great depictions of autism spectrum disorders, I too would really love to hear them. I'm trying to focus on better representation of various minority groups in the fiction I present to my students.

(Most of the big reading material is locked into the curriculum but I have control over smaller assignments, so I try to make the most of it. Especially since the majority of our student population is female and/or kids of colour. What these kids need with two years of depressing Jack London white-man-against-the-winter stories, I will never understand. Therefore: desi girls in wheelchairs conquering evil, amputee superheroes, and autism in Faeryland. Etc.)

Diverse anthology suggestions

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Kaleidoscope, edited by Julia Rios. Diverse YA sff.

Steam-Powered: Lesbian Steampunk I and II, edited by Joselle Vandefhooft. (Disclaimer: I have a story in volume I.) A fair number of the stories would be fine for teenagers; the majority don't have any on-page sex, for instance.

All three of those anthologies are diverse in regards to disability, race, religion, sexual orientation, and ethnicity. I don't recall if any of them are about someone with autism, though.

Re: Diverse anthology suggestions

[moiread]

Kaleidoscope has already been the source of several stories read to my students!

I'll look into the other two. Thank you muchly!

[timprov.livejournal.com]

Funny: I made my comment above, went up and told Mris I had found the story, at which point she told me it was you who asked, and I said "oh, if I'd known that, I'm sure Chelle would have Googled it herself."

Which of course you were doing at exactly the same time I was.

It's a YA novel (and late in a series) and so probably not useful to your class, but one of the better depictions of autism I've seen in SF/F is Diane Duane's A Wizard Alone.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

The revised version of A Wizard Alone is supposed to be pretty good. I had serious problems with the original.

[moiread]

The trouble is I'd tried Googling it for about half an hour, but no variation on "fantasy short story autism convention girl mother" brought it up within the first ten pages or so and that really was the best I could do for keywords out of what I could remember.

Fortunately torrain knew exactly which story I meant and furthermore knew where she was likely to have read it so, even though she didn't remember the author or title either, that made it findable.

This is why I crowdsource. :)

You're right about A Wizard Alone not working for my classroom needs right now, but I'll still look into it for myself. Thanks!

[timprov.livejournal.com]

That's what I meant - I saw Rachel's comment and went "I bet I can Google that now," but if I'd known it was you I would have known you would be having the same reaction.

[moiread]

Ah! Yes, I understand now. :)

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

_Nobody_ needs depressing Jack London white-man-against-the-winter stories -- especially not teenagers.

[moiread]

Seriously. SERIOUSLY. I agree so hard, and my students do too. They were fucking miserable through the whole thing.

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

Now, if they were depressing Jack London sled-dog-against-wicked-men stories, I would be all for it! I have some very fond childhood memories of reading Call Of The Wild and White Fang over and over again, and trying to decide which ending I liked better.

[nipernaadiagain.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this!

Now, more than 40 years later, I can guess Ventolin would have worked better, but I was also rereading my translation of "White Fang" over and over as a small child and it helped me so much to have memories of a brave wolf instead of the memories of misery of not having access to enough air.

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

I don't think those dog books were written as children's stories, but they work so well for the way they're from the PoV (even if written in omniscient) of a dog who doesn't really understand humans, but is still in their power and dependent on them and trying to do what they ask. A child can identify with that, sometimes. And in the books, see it from the human side, too, and get a bit more understanding of both being asked to do something hard (but necessary, if we knew more) and something hard (and honestly terrible, if we knew more).

[nipernaadiagain.livejournal.com]

I have not thought about these stories that way before, but this sounds as a true explanation.

Even more so, as I WAS a child who sometimes found it hard to understand what is actually asked from me (all these rules that are NOT meant to be followed exactly)

[moiread]

Also, ick, remind me to never use the LJ app again. It puts in all these extra carriage returns.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Is "Changeling," by Delia Sherman the kind of autism in Faeryland you're looking for, or the kind that makes you want to throw it against the wall?

[moiread]

I don't know but I'd be willing to find out!

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Ack! It's not a short story at all. Sorry. But even if you were doing novels, that one might be offensive because it takes the classic approach that only neurotypical children are really human--the autistic ones are changelings left by the fae.

[moiread]

Ah, gotcha. Thanks for clarifying!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

This essay on narrative devices and the autism voice (http://disabilityinkidlit.com/2015/04/19/narrative-devices-and-the-autism-voice/) belongs somewhere in this comment section, so I have put it here.

[sprrwhwk.livejournal.com]

I recall disliking the Strange Horizons story really strongly when I first read it, and rereading it now I can't remember why. Maybe it felt too self-congratulatory on the part of convention culture to me at the time.

A story with an autistic protagonist which I read at about the same time and which I did like is Nancy Fulda's Hugo-nominated "Movement" (http://www.nancyfulda.com/movement-a-short-story-about-autism-in-the-future), which gets me much more in the headspace.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

"Movement" was great.

[moiread]

I, too, preferred Fulda's story. Sadly I had to make a judgment call about vocabulary, since we have so many ESL kids, and it did not make the short list for my classroom. But thankfully not all suggestions need to be suitable for my students -- they can just be good things to read and enjoy.

[sprrwhwk.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that's an issue. Yeah.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I remember that story! But I see others have found it for you.