Episode 190: A panel on neurodiversity and creativity

These notes include affiliate links.

Today on Fable and the Verbivore, guest writers River Ari and Kieran (Kate) Lamoureux speak with us about their stories as neurodivergent authors and how that knowledge has changed their creative lives.

River is an author of romance and character centered stories with witty and bantery dialogue. She’s also an editing professional who provides one-on-one book coaching, developmental editing, line editing, copy editing, and sensitivity reader, dialogue doctor review, character review, and first three chapter review services. River is in the process of querying her romantic suspense novel Flies in the Honey and is currently drafting a project called Ballroom Blitz which she describes as a sapphic ballroom competition ex revenge story that has the feel of Strictly Ballroom meets RENT's "Tango Maureen." More information on her work can be found on her Instagram and editing services can be found on her website at littleizumi.wixsite.com/riverari.

Kate is an author of dark fantasy romance and contemporary fantasy stories. Her short story ‘Daughter of Darkness & Son of the Sun’ was published last year in the Worldsmyth’s Darkness & Moonlight anthology and her short story Deconstructed won first place in Tribus Polaris’s 2020 flash fiction contest. She’s also a micro editing professional who provides line editing, copy editing, proofreading, and pitches, blurbs, and synopses services. Kate published her Greedy: A Lust & Lore Novella on April 14th, 2023 and is currently working on revisions for her debut novel The Guardian (Book 1 of The Terramica War planned trilogy). More information on her work and services can be found on her website at kieranlamoureux.com.

This conversation is one of our favorites to date on the podcast. River and Kate have both worked previously with Fable, and come to this conversation with a great deal of openness and vulnerability. That combined with their knowledge and thoughtful approach to neurodivergence and their writing craft made for a wonderfully candid conversation that was a delight to be a part of and packed full of great insights and writing and life advice.

In this episode, we talk about:

The story behind their journeys to realizing that they were neurodivergent
The challenges to getting some official diagnoses once you’re past school age, but feeling confident in knowing who you are when you’ve done the work
Stereotypes and what they wish others knew about neurodivergence
Giving ourselves the invitation to throw out the rules (or suggestions) when they don’t work for you and creating your own
The benefits of working on more than one project at a time
Methods for helping to manage certain mental aspects of neurodivergence through: reading a book, taking a walk in nature, writing, talking with a friend
How to approach including diverse characters well when that’s not your experience and the importance of sensitivity readers

Towards the end of this conversation, River and Kate give some great suggestions for what has really helped them in both their personal lives and writing. Kate uses the mantra “whatever works”, reminding herself that what works today can and likely will change for tomorrow - that’s okay. Lean in to what is working right now. River recommends finding your people - the ones who are supportive and who see you as you are. Showing up unmasked and honestly talking about her experience has naturally brought together a community.

It was such a pleasure and privilege to be a part of this conversation. We hope you enjoy it too!

Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

Kate’s website is KieranLamoureux.com and her Instagram account is @kjlamoureux.writes. We’d highly recommend checking out her bibliophile posts, atmospheric pictures, teasers of her current work, and the flash fiction pieces located in her Instagram stories. We also love her open and candid posts about her personal life and creating as a neurodiverse writer. Her website also lists the micro editing with heart services that she provides - line editing, copy editing, proofreading, and pitches, blurbs, and synopses – as well as her current rates.

River is an author of romantic and character centered stories. She’s in the process of querying her romantic suspense novel Flies in the Honey and is currently drafting a project called Ballroom Blitz which she describes as a sapphic ballroom competition ex revenge story that has the feel of Strictly Ballroom meets RENT's "Tango Maureen.".

River’s website is littleizumi.wixsite.com/riverari , her Instagram account is @author.river.ari, and her Twitter account is LittleIzumi. We’d highly recommend checking out her honest and unfiltered posts about life, writing, being a nuerodivirgent creative, and celebrating the power of a good nature walk. We also love the way she posts about her current writing projects and how they do such a masterful job of capturing the aethetics and flavor of her work. Her website lists the editing services that she provides - one-on-one book coaching, developmental edits, line editing, copy editing, dialogue doctor review, character central review, first three chapters review, and sensitivity reader services - as well as her current rates and any offered discounts.

Kate was a guest on the Fable and the Verbivore podcast earlier this year on an episode about writing sex scenes. Here is that episode:

Episode 175: Writing sex scenes

We also reference two episodes released earlier this month on our own neurodivergent stories. Those episodes are:

Books Mentioned:

Greedy: A Lust and Lore Novella by Kieran Lamoureux
Two Wrongs Make a Right (The Wilmot Sisters Series) by Chloe Liese
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018) - Netflix Series

Music from: https://filmmusic.io
‘Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

interviewBethany StedmanMay 23, 2023