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 Lady Frieda Harris painting of Mercury, messenger of the gods. Photo copyright 2019, Maxfield Sparrow]

I’m Maxfield Sparrow (formerly Sparrow Rose Jones) and I’m an Autistic ADHDer.

I write and speak to Autistic adults, in solidarity and with the message that you are not alone and you are not broken. I also facilitate closed and open peer support groups for Autistic adults, through AANE.

I edited an anthology, Spectrums: Autistic Transgender People in Their Own Words (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2020).

I wrote The ABCs of Autism Acceptance (Autonomous Press, 2016) while traveling. It is an exploration of neurodiversity, acceptance, and Autistic culture in 26 chapters.

My memoir collection , No You Don’t: Essays From an Unstrange Mind (Unstrange Publications, 2013), is currently out of print as I work on an updated edition with a blend of the original material and an updated view of my growth over the decade-plus since I first published it.

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 was a consulting producer on a project featuring Autistic artists: Outside the Lines, a click story on Autistic views of Independence, from National Geographic.

I spent a few years in Colorado, working on an MFA in creative writing and poetics at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.

A photo of Max in a blue plaid shirt and grey beanie

Max looks to one side at the setting sun. The light illuminates their hazel eyes. Max has an unruly goatee shot through with grey, the shadow of a wispy mustache, a dark grey beanie, and a dark blue and white plaid button down shirt. (Aries season, 2024)

I am also an artist, composer, and public speaker. I facilitate astro-writing rituals and community for writers and journalers inspired by oracles through Mercury Muse. I’ve spent nine years and counting, traveling the U.S. in a minivan with Fermat the Wonder Cat, seeking adventure and spreading the apple seeds of autism acceptance and Autistic celebration. These days I’m in the unceded territory of the Ohlone people, the so-called Silicon Valley, where I’m working as support staff for a fellow Autist and on a quest to capture the ultimate sandpiper photo.