It was a pleasure to live illustrate Beyond The Spectrum’s online festival for the second year. As a three-year UK-wide creative writing programme for autistic people, Beyond The Spectrum is led by professional autistic writers and offers its participants to take part in writing workshops, events, festivals and masterclasses.
This year’s edition, Words Unwound, focused on the importance of slowing down, reflecting and creating our authentic voice. It celebrated rest as a source of creativity and connection. Calling for radical acceptance, the festival explored the opportunities to find joy and build confidence as autistic writers, which is jey within our ableist society, often driving us to burnout through an endless cycle of stress. Finding space for rest and normalising it enables creativity and the ability to take risks.
I had the pleasure to capture three of the sessions throughout the week, including a Radical Rest workshop with Kate Oliver and a keynote talk by the one and only Christ Packham! How cool is that?
