I was finally able to articulate something in an interview this morning. I was asked, as I always am, why I write books for ND kids and did I see myself in a book when I was younger.

And I was finally able to find the words I wanted, so I'm sharing them here:

No, I didn't see myself in books as a child. But I thought that was completely normal and how it should be.

I wasn't invited to the world. I felt like an alien gatecrasher. I loved books because they were tools for me to study and understand NT people. Their behaviours were

explained through literature in a way that helped me understand and prepare.

I never once considered that it was sad that I wasn't reflected in the pages of the stories I loved.

I didn't feel I deserved to be there.

When you're different, and you know you're different, you become used to people staring down at you in frustration. You're not reflected in your nearest family members, or your neighbours--let alone art and culture.

A teacher called me a demon. And I agreed with her.

A childhood of stacking chairs, eating lunch in the toilets & waiting in the rain for the mobile library to come and bring the books back. It never occurred to me that I could be in those books

Authors would come to our school and speak to the top sets. I would watch them leave

"Retard, useless, spaz, mong."

From adults as well as kids. When some days, it feels like there is a scent that bullies can detect & you're drenched in it.

Books were my escape. Peaceful, radical & far away escape. But always visiting the minds of the people who are not like me

If 9 year old me met me now, she would die. She would actually die. To know that it would all end. That your bullies will message you after twenty years wanting to send you their work to read.

So stop asking me why I write for ND kids.

I do it to invite them to the world. Because it's theirs, too.

And they make it fucking great.

Fun fact!!

I remember VIVIDLY feeling represented by this scene from Disney's Hercules, in the cinema at the age of 6.

I cried in the dark and didn't blink until the film was over.

Then went back to see it 11 more times.