Tag: Published books

Alien Aura Within: Aspects of Autism in Women

On By alienorasanthologyIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

At the end of 2023, I started writing a book all about my experiences as a probably-autistic woman. Although I have not yet been diagnosed, all the clues were in place from childhood onwards – and, having now met many women who struggle in very similar ways, I can see a definite set of habits, fears, behaviours and so forth which all point towards some form of ASD.

The book (title above) was heartbreakingly difficult and painful to write – and I am not ashamed to admit that I cried and cried during the process, as child-and-adolescent memories surged back in all their confusing horror.

Those who have read the book thus far have been touched, enlightened and, in some cases, comforted. Various people have said that it is a very brave and honest book – and that it could be really helpful to other probably-autistic women.

I do hope so. Sometimes laying one’s soul bare is of benefit to other human beings – and, no matter how excruciating the process, the end result can be both healing and an act of generosity towards others.

The book can be found on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

, ,
, ,

Eleven Pipers Piping!

On By alienorasanthologyIn Uncategorized1 Comment

And so it is, three years on, that I leap back into the world of blogging, music trilling from a previous stint upon the treble recorder – and the eleven books I have now written jostling for attention: pushing and shoving one another, like naughty children, and squawking to be noticed.

For my eleventh book a ‘writing, I plunged deep into the world of women with autism – having long suspected that I was of their number – and brought to the surface many sad treasures from the bottom of that emotional ocean.

The finished book itself – ‘Alien Aura Within: Aspects of Autism in Women’ – was hard to write, and I shed many tears in the process. Unable to resist that play upon my own first name, and always drawn to alliteration, I feel that I have both captured something of the essence of women with autism and purged my own soul of long-hidden pockets of shame and distress.

Like the three travel-journal books (written in 2022 and 2023), this latest book has photographic images as an integral part of it.

My literary alter-ego, Booby Fellatio, will, I am sure, pop up on here before long – and her bawdy tales from the boudoir may well result in a twelfth book eventually, though I have to admit that she already features largely in my lockdown diary book, aptly named, ‘Booby Fellatio’s Lockdown Diary’.

‘Under Cader Idris’ and ‘Booby Fellatio’s Lockdown Diary’

On By alienorasanthologyIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Astonishingly, I wrote two books during Lockdown. The first one was ‘dictated’, in part at least, by an old character, Booby Fellatio (a woman of negotiable affection with a penchant for young men): she first appeared in 2014, had her say in a previous book and then rode off into the metaphorical sunset, never (or so I assumed) to be seen again. In this, I was wrong!

Those weeks, and then months, of being in silence, for the most part, and fear and loneliness; those months in which loved ones were far away and out of reach, and human physical contact was prohibited; those months in which Covid 19 strode the Planet’s highways and byways, a modern-day Grim Reaper, with scythe made up of toxic virus particles, felling all-too many; those months – you know! – also provided the ironic stimulus for writing.

It started with sharing Booby’s misadventures with friends on Facebook. She proved very popular, and made many people laugh. This gave me the idea of combining her outrageous diary entries with my own genuine, though carefully edited, ones. The contrast between Booby’s humour(inadvertent usually) and the grim reality of what was going on in real life actually works well. The two reflect upon, and feed off, one another.

The finished book, ‘Booby Fellatio’s Lockdown Diary,’ was published in September 2020, and received some good reviews.

In October 2020, I went back to a book I had started in my mid-twenties – and basically re-wrote most of it over the next three months. There were two reasons for this: I had lost great chunks of the original over the decades, and I felt that the writing styles of my younger and older selves needed to be smoothed and combined into one. A great deal of hard, concentrated work went into this novel – and it was finally ready in early January, actually being published on the 7th of that month.

This second book – ‘Under Cader Idris’ – is set in West Wales, and has some excellent reviews on Amazon.

It has a Press Release and this will be sent out later in May.

It is three years or so since I last blogged, so this piece may remain unseen. We shall see!

Paperback copy of ‘Under Cader Idris’.