Autism Thoughts

Here is a link...

http://published.thomasamckean.com

...That will take yew to my earliest published work in the advocacy.

A lot "unknowns" are there, including both sides of the official press release for Soon Will Come the Light.  Both back covers are there as well as a published review and a few samples sections of writing in the book proper.

Also in the link is a section dedicated to Light on the Horizon, my second attempt at an autism book.  This one utterly failed due to an undiagnosed onset of fibromyalgia.  You can see it making itself known in the book as you read.  Fortunately there are so precious few copies out there (I have a few hundred still in my closet, which means I have most of them) that it isn't really anything for me to worry about.  Front and back cover are there, including me being very naughty and writing a blurb for myself under a different name for the book.  See if yew can find it and come back here and comment.  That'll be a fun game for all of us.

Completed Foreword and Introduction are there.  Jan's Foreword (which yew can read) is by far the very best pages of the entire book.  As evidence of this, there are a few random snippets and pieces of this book to read as well.

Then we get to the articles.  Most of these articles I am still proud of.  MOST of them,  Enough of them that I am willing to work for the Autism-at-Home Series for a while.  (You can look for an album that has some of those articles in it very soon.  These articles here are from the National ASA Newsletter, Future Horizons, Various State Societies who asked me to write, and of course other places.  The bottom line being that all of these articles DID make it into print and productions somehere....at some time.

Following the articles is the CD library.  I had my reservations about making a CD.  I really didn't want to do it.  There wasn't the kind of money I felt was needed to make it quality.  I waw told to go ahead anyway.

So here, in the original track listing, is the sheer disaster of "Soon Will Come the Light: A Man and his Music,"  I had nothing to do with giving the CD a title, and I never really cared for it.  Very little about it is good, except for the fact that kids with autism seem to have a "thing" for the fifth song, "If I Were an Archaeologist."  I wrote this with Jan Serak.  It is the only song I did on the CD that I did not write alone.

Somehow the younger kids with autism have latched onto this song and demand to have it played over and over.  Well, you can play it as often as yew want.    If yew want a copy to play elsewhere besides the computer, let me know.

Finally, we do have a section that has lyrics of some of those songs, so yew can sing along.  They are not all there, but my faves are.  Including the autism song I wrote and did at just about every conference for a few years in the 90's, and never a dry eye there was to be had at the end.

At the time of the CD recording, however, the disease of fibro was tearing through my bones amy muscle.  Hard I tried to hide it, the voice of the songs do cry in agony over something unknown. As yew listen, yew will know what the unknown is, because I have just told yew.

It was against my better judgment to put the CD (even more, the entire CD) up here for yew.  But it is a part of me.  It is a part of my advocacy.  Right or wrong, good or bad,  or (one can only hope?) somewhere in the middle.

So enjoy this blast into the past as a pre-cursor of the coming first year collection of Autism-at-Home Seres articles I will be posting.  I do believe they are far better than what yew will be seeing now.

Still. the articles may be of some help to yew.  Come back to the blog and comment and let me know?  Thanks.  Here is the link again:

http://published.thomasamckean.com

Off yew go....