Autistic Reader Interview: C.M. Crockford
Everything Is True
Ada Hoffmann's author newsletter
C.M. Crockford is an autistic/ADHD writer whose work has been featured in dozens of magazines, journals, and websites. To date, he’s published two chapbooks, sung in two bands, co-hosted a podcast, fostered cats, and is co-writing a short horror film currently in production. His credits include Vastarien, Nerdist, Paste Magazine, Neologism Poetry Journal, No Cinema! Quarterly, Vast Chasm, and In Between Spaces: An Anthology of Disabled Writers. He has been nominated twice for a Best of the Net award, as well as for a 2022 Pushcart award.
He lives in Philadelphia with his cats, but has been a resident of San Francisco and Boston as well. In 2022 he was the recipient of an Illuminate The Arts grant from the City of Philadelphia. His first monologue, "I Now Sit Here Bloody", was performed in September 2022 at the Boog City Poets Festival.
Social media: @cm_crockford
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?
Always hard to summarize, but I’m an autistic/ADHD writer originally from New England who’s always busy creating something - a poem, an article, a script. I know I apparently taught myself to read when I was three, in part because my sister couldn’t read to me all of the time. There’s absolutely a connection between the autistic brain’s creation of our own world and the reader’s ability to journey somewhere else, even if that place can be weird or horrible.
What are some of your favorite works of fiction? What makes them your favorites?
Some of my favorite works of fiction also tend to serve as philosophy or a challenge - my brain frankly gets bored with any media which can only offer up what I already know. I try to have a pretty varied diet of writers too - lately, there’s a lot of poetry from local Philadelphia writers like Alison Lubar and Adam Gianforcaro - but I always have a soft spot for romantic, transgressive weirdos like Yukio Mishima and Jean Genet.
What are some of the characters in fiction that you find most relatable? Some autistic readers love autistic representation, and others prefer aliens, robots, or characters who they relate to in a subtler way; do you notice any patterns in the kinds of characters that resonate for you?
I’m 100 percent the kind of autistic who identifies with robots, and even told my friend recently I feel more like a replicant than a human. I always thought humanism was weird because while humans are interesting, I certainly don’t think “mankind” is the paragon of existence. To that end, I always relate to Roy Batty in Blade Runner, the Robin Hood myth, the Driver in (uh) Drive, and Levin in Anna Karenina: outsiders often striving to be better, but also struggling with how to exist in The World.
Are there any tropes you really, especially love?
I am a sucker for characters who are driven by their natures, whether Blanche DuBois or the Scorpion and the Frog.
Are there any tropes you really, especially hate?
I’m pretty bored by reactionary superheroes and active villains whose ethics actually make sense until they kill a girlfriend or a cat or whatever. Genre writers who try to worldbuild but don’t bother reading about economics or supply chains. Finally, I dunno where anybody in media got the idea of autistics as these asexual angels devoid of eye contact. I’m neither asexual or much of an angel, and I’ll just look at you when I’m ready.
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.
Meanwhile, some news from Ada:
I was delighted to see this article in The Mary Sue by Kimberly Terasaki name-checking my old essay about disability in Star Wars! A lot about Star Wars has changed in the years since 2016, when I first wrote the essay, and I think Terasaki’s article does a great job summarizing what’s improved and what still could be better.