Autistic Reader Interview: Z.J. Cannon
Everything Is True
Ada Hoffmann's author newsletter
Z.J. Cannon is the author of more than two dozen books, mostly urban fantasy suspense about dark magic, darker heroes, and damaged characters with serious baggage. They also write science fiction and fantasy short stories as Zoe Cannon. They live in southern New Hampshire with their husband, daughter, and giant dog who gets a bit overzealous about herding his human flock. They read whenever they have a spare moment, regularly inflict unexpected philosophical questions on their husband, and think big dogs are the best dogs.
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 love that there are so many characters these days who are explicitly written as autistic, but the characters that resonate the most deeply for me are the autistic-coded characters—aliens, robots, socially awkward professors… I think when I go into a book knowing a character is autistic, it engages a more intellectual response in me—“Here’s a character I should relate to.” So right from the start, I’m evaluating the character: do I relate to them? How are they like me and how are they different? Are they good representation or bad representation? And how am I supposed to feel about the story if it’s technically “good representation” but I don’t actually like the character, or I know they’re “bad representation” but I relate anyway? Whereas when I encounter a character who feels autistic but isn’t named as autistic (and may not even have been intentionally written as autistic), I bond with the character on a gut level before that intellectual response has a chance to engage.
What makes a book difficult for you to read? What, if anything, helps make books accessible to you?
I have aphantasia, and I bounce right off big walls of description. I only get very vague sensory impressions from the things I read—for me, stories naturally translate to feelings, abstract concepts, and synesthetic impressions, not concrete details. So when the story focuses heavily on those concrete details, it takes a lot of work for me to translate them into something I can sort of vaguely see and hear and feel. That’s part of the reason most of the fantasy I read is set in the real world—a lot of alternate-world fantasy is very heavy on the description, and that turns the book into a slog, no matter how much I enjoy the story.
I’ve finally started giving myself permission to just skim the description—or skip it entirely—and not work so hard to try to fix the images in my head. It won’t affect my enjoyment of the book if I don’t know the exact layout of the castle throne room or remember whether a certain character has brown or blond hair—and it isn’t as if anyone can peer into my head and tell me I’m reading the book “wrong”!
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?
When I was growing up, I used to develop fictional special interests at least once every few years, but I can’t think of one I’ve had as an adult. I think the main difference is that I engage with special interests differently now—the older I get, the more I focus in on a couple of lifelong special interests, and the fewer short-term special interests I have. But also, in retrospect, most of my fictional special interests contained something I was looking for in my imaginative life without knowing I was looking for it. The older I get, the more self-awareness I have, and the more I can consciously meet my mental needs—both by seeking out the type of story I’m looking for and through my own writing. That means fewer experiences of the joyful serendipity of stumbling across the exact thing my imagination has been starving for, but it also means I don’t need that experience, because my imagination is already well-fed.
Are there any tropes you really, especially hate?
Starting off with an unlikeable character and reforming them to be more likeable. Especially where “unlikeable” actually means “socially unacceptable.” This is a lot more likely to happen with female characters; male characters are often allowed to keep their rough edges. The imperative to be likeable reminds me too much of my time in school, when I had friends trying to make me over against my will to render me more socially acceptable, and adults telling me they didn’t need to protect me from the bullying I dealt with on a daily basis because it was my fault for being an easy target. Also, I often just plain like the original version of the character better.
I remember reading a book a year or so ago that had a refreshingly abrasive female character, but as the book went on, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach because I could tell where it was going. I told my husband, “If this character gets redeemed by the power of love, and by ‘redeemed’ I mean ‘made into someone entirely different,’ I’m going to write a short story where a woman gets tamed by love, decides she doesn’t like it, and goes back to her old ruthless ways.” (Yes, the character got tamed by love. And yes, I wrote the short story. It’s called “Black Roses,” and I recently published it as an ebook.)
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 said earlier that I tend to prefer more subtle representation over characters who are explicitly written as autistic, and that’s true, but explicit representation is satisfying in its own way. I grew up not knowing the names for so many crucial parts of myself—I didn’t know that autism could include people like me, I didn’t know about asexuality, and I had no concept of genders other than man and woman. Discovering that other people know the hidden pieces of myself well enough to name them is a powerful experience of connection, and seeing those names used in fiction makes me feel seen and invited into the world—at least the world of books, which is where I spend a lot of my time. And I love that there’s so much of that out there these days—not just books with autistic characters, but nonbinary characters, and asexual characters, and characters that maybe I don’t personally relate to but that give other people’s hidden places a name and a place in the world.
But while I love seeing that those books exist, I often bounce off the books themselves, because for whatever reason (I do have a lot of thoughts on the reasons, but that would require an entire essay), it is not at all easy to find dark books that explicitly feature characters like me. I’ve always connected better with darker fiction, but that’s especially been the case over the past couple of years—since 2020, I haven’t been able to get invested in any story that’s lighter and lower-stakes than the way the real world felt that year. But when I look at books that are celebrated for their diverse representation, most of what I find is light and fluffy. There’s nothing wrong with fluff, but it doesn’t speak to me.
My experience of being autistic hasn’t been light and fluffy. Neither has my experience with being nonbinary. Or with being asexual. I understand why other people might want lighter stories precisely because of that, but I personally seek out stories with characters like me because I want to read about experiences I relate to—not necessarily familiar life events (I read a lot of fantasy and sci-fi), but inner experiences—and I especially want to read about the difficult experiences, and not feel as alone in them.
But although that explanation is true, I’m hesitant to offer it, because I think people who like their stories darker are often asked to justify their preferences, as if they have to prove they have the right to like what they like. So the rest of the explanation is that I just like dark stuff. I came out of the womb this way. And I want to read stories that both have characters I can see myself in and that I find satisfying in terms of tone and subject matter. I don’t want to have to choose.
This does seem to be changing—I’ve noticed a fair amount of queer horror springing up lately. The Honeys by Ryan La Sala is a great example. I hope this trend not only continues, but expands—I’d love to read, say, an autistic protagonist in a grimdark fantasy novel.
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.