Hyperlexia: A Literary Journal Celebrating the Autistic Spectrum is looking for your fiction, poetry, and personal essays. Our inaugural issue is planned for October 2008. Send submissions to submissions@hyperlexiajournal.com and please include the full text of your writing in the email if you send a PDF or a Word file. Deadline for submissions is August 31, 2008.

Hyperlexia is interested in honest, thoughtful, well-written poetry and prose about being autistic, and loving someone with autism. Our journal is a celebration of real life with autism, both the good and the bad. We want genuine and truthful writing about autism. You can be serious, sad, or funny. We believe in respecting the diversity of the human mind and discriminatory writing or hatred of any kind will not be published. Submissions should be 1500 words or less:
http://www.hyperlexiajournal.com/

Why the title? Not all autistics are hyperlexic (I wasn't), nor are all hyperlexics autistic.

From a site about hyperlexia(google ftw):

Those criterias would place hyperlexics pretty close to the spectrum. according to wikipedia, most or perhaps all hyperlexics can be considered on the spectrum.

I guess hyperlexia is either a separate but related co-morbid or is simply one of the many possible traits Aspies might have, I'm not sure which.

To give a more visual description, in terms of a Venn diagram, this might be represented by two overlapping circles, one representing AS, the other representing hyperlexia, and there are people in the middle who belong to both groups.  Alternatively, there might be a big circle representing AS and maybe a smaller circle within AS representing hyperlexia.  

That's my personal opinion, I'm not sure which is the more accurate reflection, and I'm not sure whether there are any studies that conclude one way or the other, does anyone else know?

There's a women's magazine called Mslexia (they explain the title at the bottom of the about page):

http://www.mslexia.co.uk/info/about.html

See also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mslexia

Wouldn't Autlexia or Autilexia be more appropriate as a title for a literary journal celebrating the autistic spectrum ?

How do they define "well-written" poetry?  Tbh, the emphasis on poetry puts me off, I wouldn't want to read loads of cringeworthy, amateur-ish poetry.

Having said that, as an adult, I really like the idea of a grown up publication aimed at people on the spectrum, although I'd prefer more news and information and activism/campaigning type stuff rather than self-indulgent poetry and prose one step up from vanity publishing.  Sorry, if that's not what it turns out like, but that's the impression I'm getting from the limited information...

Tbh, though, I'd be more interested in a journal or magazine that addressed wider issues such as some of the ideas floated around here:  http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com/showthre...?tid=14304  but I'm too old for their target market.  Oh, well.  

It has to be about autism?  Dang.

Also, Hyperlexia is the condition.  Why not call this something similar but distinct (I suggest Hyperlexicon, lexicon being the vocabulary and expressions of a language.)

And I could contribute some poetry if you want, I guess.

'Asperger United' is more like the latter!

Just wondering ,
I was hyperlexic ( had taught myself to read  by  the age of 3½ )  and the condition somehow  seemed to be  connected to  synaestesia.
I remember  reading  words  like `cat` ( Danish `kat`), `morning` ( morgen) and  `rainy day`
( regnvejr).
They were - and still are -  dark blue,  red  and  (just)  blue , ( respectively )
Now as an adult,  basically every word has its particular  colour.  Hearing a word  makes it flash virtually in my head like it is spelled out in  its  `fixed` colour.
It doesn`t  bother  me.  
It is  subtle  - as long as I don`t  pay attention.    

Is hyperlexia and synaestesia `clinically` reported to be connected ?
Does anyone know ?

That's interesting, and something I hadn't considered before.  

I'm hyperlexic, and, like you, I taught myself to read reliably by age three.  From that time I've been able to see the words shining in my head, like a huge internal landscape done up with consistent colours.  

For instance, "u", in my landscape, is always a sort of mustard-yellow colour, and has a matt surface; "o" is silvery with a slippery, shiny surface; and "f" is a rich blue-green, and fuzzy like felt.  When I think of the various letters, I can feel them in my fingertips, as if they were really there.  

All of the letters have their distinctive colours, textures, and even sizes, and as a consequence of that, my internal landscape is far more interesting and rich than the reality going on outside my head.  I can happily zone out for hours and just wander amongst the pretty words, to such an extent that "boredom" is a word with very little meaning to me.  

When I married my husband, I decided to learn his alphabet (he's Tamil) and although my Tamil is halting at best, I was fascinated to find that the alphabet, which has 226 separate letters, all have their own distinctive colours, sizes and shapes as well.  Not only that, but they don't correspond to the English alphabet, even when the letters are similar.  Instead, I see them in my head in their pictogram form.  It's like exploring a whole new and exotic land which you hadn't imagined previously.  I love being hyperlexic!

Alison

Wow, Alison that sounds amazing.  I wish I could experience something like that.

That is what I am curious about as well. I never write ***any*** poetry about conditions I have, except for maybe Synaesthesia.

Will

From Suite101:
"Autism spectrum conditions (ASCs) have become more prevalent in the past several years. As the rate of children being diagnosed with an ASC has increased, so has the media attention. Unfortunately, some of this media attention is negative. Three mothers of autistic children have joined forces to launch a new online journal - Hyperlexia: A Literary Journal Celebrating the Autistic Spectrum. Kerry Cohen, Phoebe Gleeson and Brittney Corrigan provide insight into their journal through an email-based interview:" http://autismaspergerssyndrome.suite101....ng_in_2009

Gawd, it sounds awful, by parents, again, not autistics... and it sounds as though it's going to be full of maudlin and amateurish poetry and other horribly emotional stuff, basically an outlet for self-absorbed people who love to hear themselves emote. Yuk.

I don't see how that's going to be any different than all the negative crap they're complaining about.

I've just had a look at that interview and tend to agree with you, EnglishLulu.  They seem to have created it to fulfill their own need.  The focus is pretty narrow as well - they want to publish writing about autism. It's also unfortunate that they haven't involved anyone who is autistic, but perhaps they would be open to changing that.

Perhaps this is an opportunity for those on AFF who are autistic and who do write prose and poetry to become involved in this venture.  It might be worthwhile approaching these women and asking if they would extend their focus to include writing by autistics, but not necessarily limited to having autism as its subject matter.  It would give a greater breadth and depth to their journal.