Autistic Reader Interview: Cleoniki Kesidis
Everything Is True
Ada Hoffmann's author newsletter
I'm a tree hugger and book worm who loves plants, funny children, sappy quotes, and making things difficult.
As a late-diagnosed neurodivergent woman, I know how it feels to be somehow wrong all the time. Too sensitive in the wrong ways, too thoughtless in more wrong ways, and always too confused. In the lonely times when people are just incomprehensible chaos, books make sense. I write with the hope that my books might be there for someone else who feels alone, and I fill my stories with weird, neurodivergent, "too much" characters like me.
Tell me a little bit about yourself. Is there anything you've written or made recently that you'd like other readers to know about? Other than what's in your bio, is there anything about your connection to autism, books, and reading that you'd like to share?
I figured out I was autistic through writing. I wrote lots of partial drafts of books as a teenager, and in college finally finished one and started editing. It included a very intense, very strange character. My critique partners kept saying how that character jumped off the page much more than the others in those early drafts, and I knew it was because something about this very weird character felt so natural and easy to write for me. When I stumbled upon an article about autism in women, I immediately realized that the character I’d created was autistic. The traits were obvious in her. I fell into a special interest and researched autism in women a ton, and eventually realized that I was autistic too. But in myself, the traits were buried under all the skills I’d learned to “fit in”. In this character, which I’d created specifically to be as “weird” as possible, I’d been able to let all that out. I don’t know if I ever would have made that connection if I hadn’t written her.
I’m working towards getting that book published, and I’ve just finished the first draft of my second manuscript, which is about an autistic 18-year-old with crippling people-pleasing. The desperate need to fit in and make people happy (and frequent agonizing failures to do so) is something I see a lot in the neurodivergent community, especially among people that age, but I so rarely see it in stereotypical autism representation, where the characters “just don’t care” about having friends.
What are some of your favorite works of fiction? What makes them your favorites?
Fantasy has always been my favorite genre. I think there’s a lot in fantasy to appeal to autistic people: black-and-white morals, detailed magic systems, familiar structures and characters. I’ve always used fantasy for escapism too when the world feels overwhelming. But beyond that, I think that fantasy appeals to people who are “different” because it’s so often about people who are very different and about worlds that are strange and hard to predict. A character exploring a fantasy world feels confused and out of their depth, which is a very relatable feeling for me in this world. There’s also just a lot of strange and interesting magic, characters, and settings, which feels comforting to me as someone who often feels different. It almost feels more familiar than a book that describes the actual world we live in, but from the perspective of a character who doesn’t see it as strange.
What makes a book difficult for you to read? What, if anything, helps make books accessible to you?
My flavor of autism is all intense emotions, intense empathy, intense everything. I like books with big emotions, vibrant stories, and characters I can really connect to. I dislike books where there’s not a lot of emotion or character voice. They just feel too flat and gray. I also struggle with the kind of books where the characters are generally happy (except for the odd conflict) and the characters see the world as pretty much logical. To me, the way society works is very chaotic, and I connect best with books where the world is also portrayed as chaotic and wild and unexpected, and the characters have big struggles alongside their big joys.
Are there any tropes you really, especially hate?
I’m sure I’m not unique in saying that I’m sick of the go-to autism representation: a white man or boy who’s a super genius and dislikes people. I just don’t see anything of myself in this. I also feel like writers don’t even represent that kind of autistic person correctly. I’m reading The Rosie Project right now (I know I’m behind on that one), and it’s bugging me that the MC doesn’t have any moments of big joy with his special interests. He’s a genetics professor, and there are many moments where the author mentions that he’s talking science or doing science, but that author doesn’t portray the intense, consuming, amazing joy of engaging in your special interest. The character seems so flat and dead inside, when actually I’m sure that that character (judging from how he’s described) gets a huge amount of joy from his work. I want to see a lot more diversity in autism representation, but I also want to see more stereotypical autistic characters get to have their real passions.
Is there anything (a type of character, a type of plot, a type of setting, a type of author, an idea, a style, etc...) that you have difficulty finding in the books you read right now? What do you wish that there was more of?
I’m always wanting more neurodiverse characters in my books, and especially ones that have intensity, vibrancy, uniqueness. To me, being neurodiverse is so inherently about being unique, but when I find books with neurodiverse characters, they’re often not that original or surprising. I think they should be!
I’d love to see more autistic characters with strange or unique interests – no more scientists, give me artists, gardeners, any random thing. Autistic characters who aren’t geniuses. Neurodivergent people who are also dealing with anxiety or depression. Neurodivergent people who were bullied, but not the common story where the bullying is some background color and the character is now a genius superstar who proved all the bullies wrong – the kind of story where the character is actually dealing with the fallout and scars of real bullying (and they are not a genius superstar).
The other thing I’d love to see is more SFF focused on characters who aren’t young (or young-ish), single, and falling in love. Characters who are parenting, or separating instead of getting together, or in the middle of a long-term relationship, or have other adult relationships and responsibilities. There are so many books focused on this one phase in someone’s life, coming of age or finding themselves or falling in love. But other phases of life are so rich in drama and conflict and emotion!
It almost requires a different story structure to write about characters like that. The classic structure, with a call to adventure and a character going off into the unknown, requires a protagonist with no home responsibilities (like a young man…). You can’t just ditch your kids or drag them off into danger with you. I would love to see more people tackling how to write riveting stories with fantastica adventures about people who do have responsibilities in the home and more complicated personal lives. A spouse who’s ill? A pregnancy? A messy ongoing divorce? An aging parent? All of that!
This month at Everything Is True, we’re interviewing a wide variety of autistic readers with questions like these! You can find a schedule with the rest of the interviews here.