on Jane Friedman site:

Nearly thirty years ago, neurologist Oliver Sacks noted that autistic advocate Temple Grandin’s writing, rather than adhering to the sustained narratives he was used to, was uniquely fragmented: the writer bounced from one idea to another with seemingly little reason: “What one does see in Temple’s writings,” he wrote, “are peculiar narrational gaps and discontinuities, sudden, perplexing changes of topic.” What he perceived in Grandin’s work, in other words, was fragmentation.

I’ve been thinking about this subject for years, the entire time I’ve been working on my memoir, How to Be a Human Girl: A Memoir of Grief, Neurodiversity, and Finding a Home in the Universe. When I first conceived of this particular essay over a year ago, I found Sacks’s response anachronistic, even quaint. What relevance did it have amid the growing popularity of the fragmented narrative, the rise of the neurodiversity movement, and declining global attention spans?

A lot has happened in the last year, and as an AuDHD writer I feel compelled to respond.