One direction, and then another

Life On The Inside is an email newsletter about life with my son who has autism and who has been under house arrest since April 2023. You can sign up here:

A little “lite” reading for Life on the Inside

Sometimes we think we’re headed in one direction and then life happens, and suddenly we’re headed in a new one. Or maybe it’s an old direction that we’ve tabled for a bit but now find ourselves drawn to again.

For several weeks I’ve been dedicating my writing time to NightPrime. I’ve gotten some very encouraging feedback on the initial, incomplete first draft, and I thought I’d spend the next few months finishing it. Doing so would mean putting any plans I might have had for turning this newsletter into a memoir aside for a bit, which was ok with me.

Until I heard from a dear friend about a situation a dear friend of hers finds herself in.

The friend’s adult autistic son is in jail charged with a sex crime. He’s been there for months, most recently in solitary confinement. He was given a public defender and then that person was “pulled” from his case. A new attorney was assigned, but he or she has yet to meet with this young man. This has been going on since June, and no one, no one from the Public Defender’s office will speak to the young man’s mother about what’s happening, if there’s has a trial date set, nothing.

These are all the details I can provide as I don’t want to violate anyone’s privacy. I feel honored that the information was shared with me in the hope that I could help, and I have tried and continue to try and do so. And I keep wracking my brain — what else can I do? If I had all the money in the world, I’d pay for the expert legal counsel this young man deserves. But I don’t have that kind of money.

What I do have is 50,000 words of Life on the Inside written that I can edit, add research to (which is why the above heartbreaking book is on my reading pile), polish, and get out into the hands autism parents just like me who never expected to find themselves — or their child — in this situation and, worse, to find that the criminal justice system is predisposed to treating those with autism and developmental disabilities even more harshly than they do neurotypical defendants.

Yes, you read that right.

I plan to continue trying to help this woman and her son. And I plan to finish the draft of Life on the Inside. It’s all I can really do and so, I’m doing it.

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How you can help

If you pray, please pray for S and C.

Encourage people to subscribe to (but not pay for) this newsletter. The bigger my subscriber base (here, on Facebook, Instagram, etc.) when I pitch agents and traditional publishers, the better. And on that note,

please “like” my Facebook Author page: https://www.facebook.com/SusanMcCorkindaleAuthor

please follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/susanmccorkindale/

If you know of autism groups I should be following or whose newsletters I should be subscribing to, please let me know.

Thank you all so very much!