A cartoon of the author

[image description: A cartoon version of a white transmasculine person with short dark hair, wearing a brown t-shirt with a rainbow logo that reads “Autistic Badass Brigade” and glasses, standing and holding up a small painting of Mercury, messenger of the gods. Photo copyright 2019, Maxfield Sparrow]

I’m Max Sparrow (formerly Sparrow Rose Jones) and I’m Autistic.

I write and speak to Autistic adults, in solidarity and with the message that you are not alone and you are not broken, and to family and mentors of Autistic children, because I don’t want the children of today to have to waste tomorrow healing from the sorts of things I survived yesterday.

I’ve recently edited an anthology, Spectrums: Autistic Transgender People in Their Own Words (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2020). The ABCs of Autism Acceptance (Autonomous Press, 2016) is an exploration of neurodiversity, acceptance, and Autistic culture in 26 chapters. Where my memoir collection , No You Don’t: Essays From an Unstrange Mind (Unstrange Publications, 2013), approached autism from the personal perspective of my lived experience, ABCs expands that view, pulling together ideas, quotes, and information about the Autistic community at large.

Maxfield Sparrow with Mister Kitty

[image description: Maxfield Sparrow is hugging Fermat the Wonder Cat (a.k.a. Mister Kitty), a black and white tuxedo cat. The image is black and white. Photo copyright Maxfield Sparrow, 2018.]

In addition to my own books, my work appears in the following anthologies:

I write free-lance for publications like NOS Magazine, The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism, and Rooted in Rights. For most of 2019 I’ve been a consulting producer on a project featuring Autistic artists, coming soon from National Geographic.

I am also an artist, composer, and public speaker. I spent almost five years traveling the U.S. in a minivan with Fermat the Wonder Cat, seeking adventure and spreading the apple seeds of autism acceptance. These days I’m in the Colorado front range, working on an MFA in creative writing and poetics at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.