Late Bloomer: How an autism diagnosis changed my life

· Bolinda · Narrated by Clem Bastow
5.0
2 reviews
Audiobook
8 hr 57 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook

Clem Bastow grew up feeling like she’d missed a key memo on human behaviour. She found the unspoken rules of social engagement confusing, arbitrary and often stressful. Friendships were hard, relationships harder and the office was a fluorescent-lit nightmare of anxiety. It wasn’t until Clem was diagnosed as autistic, at age 36, that things clicked into focus. The obsession with sparkly things and dinosaurs. The encyclopaedic knowledge of popular music. The meltdowns that would come on like a hurricane. The ability to write eloquently while conquering basic maths was like trying to understand ancient Greek. These weren’t just ‘personality quirks’ but autistic traits that shaped Clem’s life in powerful ways. With wit and warmth, Clem reflects as an autistic adult on her formative experiences as an undiagnosed young person, from the asphalt playground of St Joseph's Primary School in Melbourne to working as an entertainment journalist in Hollywood. Along the way she challenges the broader cultural implications and ideas around autism, especially for women and gender-diverse people.

Ratings and reviews

5.0
2 reviews

About the author

Clem’s writing appears regularly in The Saturday Paper and The Guardian, and she has written extensively for The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Big Issue. She has contributed chapters to books including Investigating Stranger Things (Palgrave MacMillan, 2021), ReFocus: The Films Of Elaine May (Edinburgh University Press, 2019) and Copyfight (NewSouth Publishing, 2015). She co-wrote and co-presented the 2017 ABC podcast Behind The Belt, a documentary “deep dive” into professional wrestling, and in 2018 she co-produced the first wrestling death match to be held on Tasmanian soil, Night Massacre, for Dark Mofo. She holds a Master of Screenwriting from University Of Melbourne/VCA, and teaches screenwriting at University of Melbourne. Clem is currently undertaking a PhD in action cinema and screenwriting at RMIT University. Her debut nonfiction book, Late Bloomer (Hardie Grant Books) is out in July 2021.

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