Autistic Reader Interview: Jes Battis
Everything Is True
Ada Hoffmann's author newsletter
Jes Battis (they/them) is a queer autistic writer and teacher and the author of the Occult Special Investigator series and Parallel Parks series (as Bailey Cunningham) with Ace. Their first novel, Night Child, was shortlisted for the Sunburst Award. Jes teaches queer and trans studies, medieval literature, and representations of disability/neurodiversity in pop culture at the University of Regina. They split time between the prairies and the west coast.
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 grew up reading a lot of fantasy literature, and I always connected with the wizards (all wizards are low-key autistic). I actually struggled a bit with reading as a kid, because I’d always start daydreaming as soon as I opened a book. I enjoyed Choose Your Own Adventure style books where the reader had more control over the story. I didn’t really connect with the straight heroic boys in epic fantasy novels, but the wizards were always relatable, and I remember studying the beautiful maps of fantasy worlds (I still do). In 2021 I published an academic book called Thinking Queerly, which discusses neurodivergent characters in both medieval literature and contemporary adaptations (everything from Merlin to She-Ra).
What are you reading right now? What are you looking forward to reading soon?
I just finished Any Other City, a book by Hazel Jane Plante which mirrors the structure of a record: one “side” focuses on an imaginary trans rock star before she’s famous, and the second half is about how she deals with fame while living in a mythical city. It was lush, devastating, and beautiful. I also recently finished Jen Sookfong Lee’s Superfan, a memoir about her experiences with pop culture, which was wonderful and compelling. I’m currently reading Less Is Lost by Andrew Sean Greer, the sequel to Less, which explores the travels of an awkward, middle-aged gay protagonist as he tries to make sense of life and love. I’m looking forward to Zabé Ellor’s Silk Fire, an epic fantasy novel, since I loved their YA book May The Best Man Win (focusing on trans and autistic teens).
What are some of your favorite works of fiction? What makes them your favorites?
I think the book I recommend most often is Imogen Binnie’s Nevada, which focuses on a trans woman who breaks up with her girlfriend and then goes on a road-trip. It’s funny and real and heartbreaking, and it helped to redefine trans literature by trans authors. Terry Pratchett’s Wee Free Men could be a perfect book, and Tiffany Aching is definitely autistic (Granny Aching, too). I often re-read Richard Siken’s book of poems, Crush, and one of my comfort reads is Tanya Huff’s Summon The Keeper series (she really gets Canadian humor). My favorite book of all time might be The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, about an alien living on an asteroid who visits Earth, but fails to understand its customs (relatable).
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?
Growing up, I related to Gandalf, because they were always a bit cranky and unpredictable—you could tell they weren’t used to human interaction, and just wanted to be left alone with their pipe weed. I also related to Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Odo on Deep Space Nine: both characters who struggled to understand things like “society” and “gender” (the episode of DS9 where Odo melts into a puddle of glowing goo was almost uncomfortably relatable). While reading Casey Plett’s A Dream of a Woman, I definitely connected with the character Hazel—a trans woman growing up in a small town who reconnects with an old flame. Plett’s characters are always beautifully awkward and relatable. Also Isaac from Heartstopper, because he just wants to read, but his friends keep distracting him! Neurodiversity and gender diversity are often intertwined, so I think I tend to connect with characters who are figuring out their own bodies and minds.
Are there any tropes you really, especially love?
I’m a sucker for the trope where a neurodivergent person ends up solving a problem by thinking about it differently (e.g., River Tam in Firefly, who solves several mysteries just because her brain is different). I’m also a sucker for a soft boy friendship, like the relationship between Eric and Otis on Sex Education. And witchy Sapphic romances (RIP Tara from Buffy, still mad about it).
Are there any tropes you really, especially hate?
Any storyline where a disabled character teaches the able-bodied characters a lesson. I loved Ryan O’Connell’s last novel, Just By Looking At Him, because the protagonist is flawed and disabled and queer, and the narrative focuses on his own self-discovery, rather than something he has to “give” to nondisabled people. I also hate the “trans supporting role” trope, where a trans character appears to be some sort of magical guide to cis people, and then vanishes. Make that character central and real, instead. Make the show about them!
Have you ever had a special interest in a fiction series or genre of fiction? What makes a work of fiction special-interest-worthy for you - or do the interests seem to descend at random?
I like books with innovative magic systems. Diane Duane’s Middle Grade/YA series, Young Wizards, features a magical language that has its own lexicon and rules of grammar—where you create magic by describing things. In Métis author Cherie Dimaline’s latest book, VenCo, the witches use a mixture of different ritual traditions, including Métis traditions, and that was a nice departure from let’s speak in bad Latin and wave a wand. Anything involving runes or plants or objects, where the magic is relational in the sense that you need to cooperate with the universe. I also like stories with obscure gods and less popular traditions—Nicola Griffith’s Hild and Spear were both great for this. I hate when magic is just I wave my hands and shoot fire at you. At that point, it might as well just be a gun, and magic should be more than that.
What makes a book difficult for you to read? What, if anything, helps make books accessible to you?
I struggle when world-building is frontloaded to the first few chapters—those details should be revealed slowly, with a focus on how the world illuminates the characters. I also struggle with books where 90% of the characters are straight and cis, because they don’t seem to reflect the world as it actually exists. I’m not great at navigating epic novels that focus on a huge cast of characters—I want to learn about a few characters in detail. I tend to read more e-books these days, because it’s easier to adjust the text size/brightness. Books that periodically remind you of what happened in earlier chapters are the best, because I don’t remember those details as well as I used to, and I’m often reading at the end of the day, when my brain is toast.
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?
Fantasy and SF novels where the protagonists are queer, trans, and disabled. We sometimes see these characters on the sidelines, but rarely at the heart of the story (I’m thinking of the current adaptation Shadow and Bone—which I like very much, by the way—where the focus is clearly on a straight romance and the queer and disabled characters feel like they’re on the periphery).
Is there anything else you'd like to share?
My urban fantasy/mystery novel, The Winter Knight, comes out April 3 from ECW press, and focuses on a queer autistic lead character. It’s a remix of Arthurian legends, combined with a murder mystery. The audiobook version, from Penguin-Random House, also features queer, trans, and disabled voice actors.
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:
Justin Koreis from digitaltrends listed Trinity Fusion as one of the 7 best video games previewed this year at PAX 2023. In fact, it’s first on the list!