Growing in to Autism with Sandra Thom-Jones

Discussing her book, Growing in to Autism, Sandra tells the story of realising that she was autistic – and how her life changed for the better when she stopped trying to fit into neurotypical expectations of who she should be, and came to accept herself as a successful autistic person.

Sandra Thom-Jones is an autistic author, artisan, academic and advocate. She is the author of Growing in to Autism (MUP, 2022), and Autistics in Academia (Cambridge University Press, 2024). Frustrated with the narrow and stereotypical portrayal of autistic people in the media, Sandra recently left a career in university leadership to focus on writing fiction with autistic characters. In 2023 she was awarded the Liz Navratil Prize for the Best Crime Story with a Disabled Protagonist, and won the third prize in the Scarlet Stiletto Awards. Her writing on the autistic experience has also been published in The Conversation, The…