Brains are Different: Gail and Clay Morton talk about WHY JOHNNY DOESN'T FLAP

Gail and Clay Morton are known for wit and kindness, and that combination is front and center in Why Johnny Doesn’t Flap:  NT is OK!, a satirical picture book. 

Its narrator deals with a puzzling neurotypical friend who can’t follow a schedule, doesn't arrive at play dates exactly on time, and is obsessed with social interaction.  But the narrator learns such oddities can be tolerated:  Johnny’s way of interacting with in the world really is OK.

Gail and Clay, members of a neurodiverse family, were generous enough to speak to me about their new book, which was released on October 21.

What prompted you to write Why Johnny Doesn't Flap: NT is OK!?

Why Johnny Doesn't Flap appears to be a children's picture book about neurological difference.  Some reviewers seem to have assumed that it is intended for children, and Amazon even gives the recommended age as 5 and up!  That's been pretty funny to us because we saw the whole appeal of the book to be its ironic humor, which a child of that age could not possibly appreciate.  We intended it as a satire on children's books about autism, which, though well-intentioned, always end up being condescending.  Even as they call for tolerance of autistic behaviors, they make it clear that they consider those behaviors bizarre and wrong.  So we were poking fun at those books, aping their style and subverting their conceits.  That said, we have found that different readers have different takes on the book and can get something meaningful out of it that we did not intend.  And we see no reason not to consider those reading valid.

Reviews of your book note that you flip our culture's usual pattern:  your narrator is positioned to grant understanding and acceptance to the neurotypical.  Why do you think this point of view was important?

You know, we could flip that question around and ask, why is the other pattern usual?  Why do people with high-functioning autism have a disorder while non-autistic people are "normal?"  You could point out the difficulties people with autism often have functioning in the world, but isn't that because the world is set up for neurotypical people?  If it were set up for people with autism, then the neurotypical people would have problems functioning and would be considered disabled.  H.G. Wells understood this basic idea back in 1904 when he wrote "The Country of the Blind."  So flipping the pattern is important because it shows that these standards of normalcy, which we take to be natural and inevitable, are actually social constructs -- subjective and culturally relative.

What was it like writing a book together?

The divorce papers have been filed.  [Laughter.]  No, no, it was actually pure joy.  "Writing a book" sounds so grandiose; this work is a grand total of 1,253 words, so it's not as if it involved a lot of actual writing.  We wrote the first draft on a school bus while chaperoning a field trip.  In general, Clay has the words and Gail's input is conceptual, but not always -- Gail did the writing on some pages, and Clay had the ideas for some pages.  With a humorous work like this one, the important thing is seeing what makes someone laugh, and we have always been able to make each other laugh, so working together was ideal.  It was just like any other day.

What was the most surprising thing about the process of writing and publishing this book?

The most surprising thing was that it got published!  We felt like this was our own private joke and that no one else would get it.  As we said, there has been some of that, but when we received feedback from the editors at Jessica Kingsley Publishers, it was clear that they understood both the humor and the more serious message behind it.  Even the changes they recommended made it clear to us that they knew exactly what we were doing.

Why present these ideas in the guise of a children's book?  What does the form offer both the writer and the reader?

The simplest answer is that it was a funny idea: pretending that neurotypical (NT) children are unusual and that their behaviors need to be explained in the same way that autistic behaviors are so often explained in children's books.  We even included a sardonic "Note for Parents," which says things like, "According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as many as 67 in 68 children may be neurotypical -- it is truly an epidemic!" and "NTs are people too, and the fact that they are different doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with them."  There is some comedic shorthand here.  People are familiar with those kinds of books, and so they get what we are parodying.

But more importantly, we wrote the book for our son and others on the spectrum who are a little tired of being painted as the "odd" ones who must be "tolerated" or "accommodated."  In reality, our son spends most of his time "tolerating" and "accommodating" the absurdities of the NT world.  Why have a schedule at school if you are going to disrupt that schedule every other day?  Why require students to attend a pep rally that, for some of them, will be an excruciating assault on their senses?  These practices really make no sense, but he must tolerate and accommodate them.  So it's a kid's book that provides our kid's perspective and, in doing so, validates that perspective.  When he looks at it now, he laughs at the situations he recognizes from his life.  We hope that later, when he is older, he will look back at it and see that we never thought of his cognitive and behavioral style as being wrong or in need of a cure.  As for parents who do see high-functioning autism that way, we hope that this book will at least make them question their assumptions about the relative merits of their child's uniqueness and the "normal" ways of thinking and acting.  

Why Johnny Doesn't Flap: NT is OK! is published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers.  It is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Gail Morton is a Public Services Librarian at Mercer University.  She holds an MLIS from the University of South Carolina – Columbia and has worked in academic libraries for twenty years.  As part of the Southeastern Native Documents team, she received the University of Georgia ASSET Award.

Clay Morton is Director of the Honors Program and Associate Professor of English at Middle Georgia State University.  He received his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia and is the author of The Oral Character of Southern Literature and various scholarly essays.

Making It Shine: Poet Kelly Whiddon Talks about Life and Art

How does writing fit into life?  For Kelly Whiddon, writing poetry helps us feel life’s details more deeply.

Kelly Whiddon’s poetry takes us to a place where houses of gingerbread and cinderblock meet, where reality fractures fairy-tale dreams, and where story brings lyrical order to daily life.  Her collection of poems, The House Began to Pitch, is the winner of the 2011 Adrienne Bond Award for Poetry, and her work if featured in the anthologies Writing on Napkins at the Sunshine Club and The Southern Poetry Anthology: Volume V: Georgia, as well as in numerous literary magazines.  She is also the former president of the Georgia Writer’s Association.

In person, Kelly is even more impressive.  She blends the sharp vision of her poetry with warmth and grace.  The combination of her skill, approachable manner, and easy smile makes Kelly a popular Creative Writing professor at Middle Georgia State University.  Outside of class, Kelly shares her Macon, Georgia, home with husband Steve, and they are parents of three-year-old twins Evie and Finn.      

I’m pleased Kelly agreed to talk about writing and its place in her rich life.  Even if you’re not a poetry-reader or writer, you’ll be fascinated by what she has to say.

Many of your poems connect stories from myth, folklore, movies, and even television shows with hard details of ordinary life.   Why do you find the intersection of these elements so valuable in creating a poem?

KELLY:  I’ve always been fascinated by the role that stories play in our lives, whether they be family stories passed down, religious stories, or the entertainment we fill our lives with (movies, television, books, etc.).  I guess the endurance of certain stories and masterplots throughout time also really captivates me, makes me think of the connections we have with those who have come before us, and the cycles that are created and recreated.   Narrative is not only something we generate every day through the act of living and reiterating our actions (through conversations, diaries, emails, texts, etc.), but something we engage with every day, something that influences the decisions we make and the actions we take.  In a way, it seems impossible to ever really separate art and reality, and I find myself returning to that theme in my writing again and again.   And specifically considering the idea of marrying myth and folklore with the details of ordinary life, I think the point is that even the things we think of as ordinary are not ordinary at all.  They have power, and they are what make us and create our histories and fuel our imaginations; they are what lead to folklore and myth. 

What, to you, is the most important thing a poem does?

KELLY:  Illuminates, and I mean that in several senses of the term.  Obviously, there is the idea of giving one knowledge but also the idea of making something brighter, more striking, more stunning.  I think the best poetry takes a small thing and shines a light on the brilliant, disgusting, macabre, ephemeral, delicate, transcendent aspects of that thing, so that you don’t just know more about that thing, you feel more about it. 

What’s the biggest misconception people have about writing poetry?

KELLY:  That’s easy: that it should always rhyme.  On a deeper level, though, I think it would be the idea that there is one meaning to every poem, and that meaning is whatever the poet intends it to be.  Many students who first try writing poetry can’t fathom that there can be multiple meanings, some of which the poet may never have intended and may have never even seen in the poem.  My best poems often seem more guided by my subconscious than any plan I had in mind.  In fact, I don’t go into poems with a plan or a theme; I think that is the surest way to destroy the poem’s potential.  I tell my students not to know what the poem is about before they start writing it.  Instead, they should discover it along the way, let the poem speak to them as they are creating it.

You wear many hats besides “poet,” including “professor,” “spouse,” and “parent.”  Do these different parts of your life tend to come into conflict or enrich each other?

KELLY:  Both.  There are so many more things to write about as you age and take on more roles, and there is so much less time to write because of those responsibilities, it’s pretty paradoxical.

What’s the most challenging part of writing poetry at this point in your life?

KELLY:  Ha.  See question 4 [the previous question].  J

What is the most rewarding part of the writing process for you?

KELLY:  Getting the writing done, like any form of art, gives me a sense of wellbeing, as if I’m doing what I should be doing, both in expressing myself, and in just recording things, things from real life and from my imagination.  For me, creativity seems to give a point to life.  When I was younger and had more time, I used to call my mother every day to tell her about the day’s events, and when a friend asked why I did this, I surprised myself by saying, “If I don’t share with her what I did that day, it’s like it didn’t happen.”  I’m so busy now with my own family, I only get to talk to my mother about once a week, but I still think I have a similar philosophy about writing: this sense that passing on what you did, what you know, and what you’ve learned to someone else and using this process to help make sense of it for yourself are the reasons you’re living.

Which of your poems holds a special place in your heart?

KELLY:  Oh, wow.  That’s an interesting question because it’s not asking which I like the best or think has the best use of imagery and metaphor, and I don’t think I’ve ever asked myself this question before, but I guess the poems that come from my parents’ experiences hold a special place for me because they make me think of them.  There is one called “Thumbing for a Hitch” which came out of my father’s experience of falling off the back of a truck onto a dirt road when he was young, and his father knew he had fallen off the truck and just kept driving.  I turned this into a serious poem that, for me, is about a father who was strict and too hard on his kids, but when my dad told me the story, it was actually funny.  You won’t see it in my book, but my father was a very funny guy.  He passed away eight years ago, but this poem makes me think of him and his joking personality. 

Which of your poems thus far has been the most technically challenging to write?

KELLY:  Probably the very last one in The House Began to Pitch, and I’m still not sure it’s finished.  My sister actually gave me the idea of writing about keys—the ones on your keychain that have been there so long you don’t remember what they open.  I thought it was an awesome idea, and as someone who walks around for way too long with a set of keys that probably weighs ten pounds, it seemed appropriate that I should write it.  But, as I was saying earlier, poems seldom come together well when you already know what they’re about before you start writing them, so I struggled a good deal with getting that one right.  In the end, I felt it worked really well as the final work in this collection of poems that is about stories and history.  On it’s own, I still would like to tinker with it. 

Do you have a favorite word?

KELLY:  Reminds me of Inside the Actor’s Studio  J.  I like any concrete word that has energy and action and a little trouble to it, and if it has more than one meaning, all the better.  That’s why I like the word “pitch” that is in the title of my book.  It has energy and darkness and can be used as an adverb, a noun, or a verb, and has so many layers of meaning.  Also, curse words are great.  “Shit” and “fuck” are my favorite because they are so emphatic and really get attention.  I have a poem that is more recent that I wrote about my husband called, “Bear Grylls Can Suck It,” and it is by far my favorite title that I’ve ever written, not only because you have the intrigue of writing about a reality TV survivalist with a funny name but also because the sounds “suck it” are so emphatic and alive.

Why write poetry?  What does it offer to both writer and reader?

KELLY:  Poetry, like any form of art, is a way to re-experience the world, a rendering of it, so that the poem makes you stand back and see things in a new way; or pay attention to things you would have ignored; or analyze, categorize, or explain things in a way that makes you feel them.  I write and read poetry because it’s fun and it’s fascinating.  It helps me learn things about myself and the world around me. 

If you haven’t read Kelly’s poetry, you need to.  If you want to learn more about writing, you can’t do better than to check out her classes, many of which are also offered online.

Kelly Whiddon is a poet and Associate Professor at Middle Georgia State University.  She holds a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from Florida State University.  Winner of the 2011 Adrienne Bond Award for Poetry for The House Began to Pitch, her work is featured in the anthologies Writing on Napkins at the Sunshine Club and The Southern Poetry Anthology: Volume V: Georgia, as well as in literary magazines such as Crab Orchard Review, Poetry International, Meridian, Spoon River Poetry Review, Southern Poetry Review, and Slipstream.

Telling Fortunes and The Future of this Blog

 

Thanks to all who have read my short story "A Spring Break Carol."  It's had over 100 downloads since it has been available.  

 
I hope you will also try the first novel in my "Cedar Springs Psychic" Series, Telling Fortunes.  You can find it on Amazon as a Kindle ebook here (under my "other" name, Benita Huffman).  If you don't have a Kindle, you can download a free Kindle reader for various devices.

Telling Fortunes is the story of psychic Cassie James, who gives up her chance of fame for a desk job in her small hometown.  Her cousin hopes to save her soul, teen girls beg her to read their palms, and a science teacher wants to discredit her.  But just as she begins to find some peace and an unexpected love, old family secrets threaten her new life, and Cassie realizes that seeing the future isn't enough to deal with the sins of the past.   

 

I've had fun writing Telling Fortunes, and I hope people enjoy reading it.  Please consider leaving an honest review and telling others.

 

What's Next for the Blog?

I call this blog "What the Write Hand is Doing."  I'm interested in how writing enriches, complicates, and compliments a busy life.  We've all got plenty to do, so why make space for writing or other creative passions?

 

Over the next few months, "What the Write Hand is Doing" will host some question-and-answer sessions with other people who make writing part of already full lives. 

 

Here are some of the writers we'll be hearing from:

 

Poet Kelly Whiddon, author of the poetry collection The House Began to Tilt and winner of the 2011 Adrienne Bond Award.  Her work has appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Poetry International, Meridian, Southern Poetry Review, and Slipstream.  She has been featured in Writing on Napkins at the Sunshine Club: An Anthology of Poets Writing in Macon.

 

Clay Morton and Gail Morton, authors of Why Johnny Doesn't Flap: NT is OK, a picture book that has been called "an irreverent subversion" and "a breath of fresh air" as it presents a narrator trying to understand why neurotypical people act in such peculiar ways.

 

Novelist Robin Johns Grant, author of Summer's Winter (bronze medal winner for Romance-Suspense in the International Readers' Favorite Book Awards) and Jordan's Shadow.  Robin was named 2014 Author of the Year by the Georgia Association of College Stores. 

 

Follow the blog.  You won't want to miss them.     





Free Short Story

"A Spring Break Carol: A Short Ghost Story"

by Benita Huffman

As dean, Jason makes the tough calls so his struggling small college will survive, including hiring a trendy, digitally savvy scholar to replace the recently deceased Professor Maynard Allen.  In life, Maynard never interfered with Jason's agenda.  So why is his ghost haunting Jason's office?  To destroy the new school Jason must create?  Or is his plan even more sinister: to reform Jason? 

"A Spring Break Carol" is a short ghost story of 6,629 words (24 pages).

Available on Smashwords, B&N, and Amazon

Smashwords for free here

Barnes and Noble for free here

Amazon (currently at 99 cents, but at some point they will match competitors' price) here

 

"We all have an addiction to narrative"

Long ago at UNC-Chapel Hill, Marya Devoto said the common feature of all those pursuing degrees in English was that we were addicted to narrative.  That's true for all of us who love to read, write, and talk about what we've read.

Over the years, as I've read and written in my professional role as an English professor, I've continued to read and write for fun.  Last summer, I began a plan to follow footsteps of MGA colleague Robin Johns Grant and make the fun writing I do available as ebooks as an independent author.  As this summer ends, I've taken the plunge. 

"A Spring Break Carol" was inspired by an old piece of college gossip more than a decade ago; campuses all have their ghosts.

Within a few days, I will also be releasing Telling Fortunes, the first in a series of novels. 

In Telling Fortunes, just as she was poised to hit the big time, psychic Cassie James stops helping families find missing people and moves back to her small hometown for a desk job.  A cousin set on saving her soul, school girls who want their fortunes told,  and a science teacher ready to discredit her complicate the new life she hoped to build.  Yet just as she begins to find what she wanted, old family secrets threaten it all.

Telling Fortunes will be available soon on Amazon.  It will also be available through Amazon's Kindle Unlimited program.

A New / Old Name

You'll find these books under my old name:  Benita Huffman

Why? 

I'll have a way to separate my normal persona -- Dr. Muth -- from my lighter persona -- Benita Huffman -- the ebook writer.

Plus, I've missed being Benita Huffman.  It's the name I call myself in my head.  Even 25 years later, I occasionally slip up and introduce myself that way.

More practically, as years of students know, "Muth" does not suggest an obvious pronunciation.  "Huffman" is more user-friendly.

But there's no juicy gossip here.  I'm keeping Michael (the one I got the "Muth" name from) around.  He's worked out well for 25 years, and who else could put up with me?  I'm hoping we're blessed with many more years together. 

Want some summer reading?

I hope you will try "A Spring Break Carol" and Telling Fortunes.  If you like them, tell others and consider leaving an honest review.