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I'm Jessica Kidwell and this is Neuroversity, a space to expand our understanding and knowledge

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about neurodiversity and to elevate neurodivergent voices and experiences. Today I am joined by

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Emily Barth Eisler, writer, middle grade fiction author, and sustainability beauty journalist.

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A former child actress, she performed all over the world in theater, film, and tv. She spent

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several years in New York writing episodic television for the web with Emmy award-winning

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Phoebe TV. And she has spent a lifetime writing YA short stories and plays.

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And Emily has obsessive compulsive disorder, or OCD for short. Emily and I had a multiple

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hour conversation ranging from writing, neurodivergence in creative fields, and gun

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control. We really went lots of places. And it was all so good, I decided to go with not one,

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but two episodes for Neuroversity. So curious minds, let's get started.

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Today's episode focuses on Aftermath, her award-winning debut novel which received the

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Mathical Book Prize in 2022. This is awarded by the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute

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in cooperation with the Institute for Advanced Study. And it's also in partnership with the

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National Council of Teachers of English and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

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And it's also in coordination with the Children's Book Council.

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And after reading Aftermath, I asked Emily if she intentionally wrote the main character as

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neurodivergent. And this led to a pretty great conversation on inclusion in media of neurodivergent

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characters. So Emily, you came onto my radar through a mutual friend, and she thought we

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should have a conversation and talk. And we had a very, you know, formalized, camlendly,

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let's get to know each other. And we ended up speaking for like an hour and a half. And I

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decided I think that maybe you should just co-host this podcast with me.

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We had so much to talk about. It was a really fun conversation. I sort of wish we had recorded it,

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but on the other hand, I'm glad we get to talk again. I was like, oh, well, at least I get to

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do this again. So that's right. That's right. It all works out. And that so far has been my favorite

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thing about doing this podcast is just the incredible people I'm getting the chance to meet

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that I would otherwise not have had that chance. I feel the same way about publishing a book,

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which it's so funny because writing is such a, in some ways, lonely and solitary profession.

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But actually publishing a book and getting to promote it has allowed me to talk to, I mean,

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all kinds of fascinating people, maybe most importantly, actual kids that I'm writing for

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that I don't always get to, you know, I spend a lot of time imagining how they think and getting

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to actually talk to them and hear their reactions is 100% the most gratifying. But I've also gotten

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to meet all kinds of people in education and in literature and in arts and, you know, I mean,

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it's been such a lovely and wonderful sort of side effect of writing a book that I wasn't

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fully expecting. I didn't realize it was going to be so social afterwards. I know, I think

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counter intuitively a writer's work is very solo. I don't want to say lonely because I think most

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writers choose it because it is fulfilling to them and not a super lonely experience,

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but it's a solitary experience. And it's also, I want to give, you know, the credit where credit

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is due. I have an agent, I bounce ideas off. I have an editor who 100% makes my work better and

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adds to it and shapes it. And a million people at my publisher who weigh in and, you know,

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there are so many hands that go into it, but the general process is rather solitary. And I like

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that. I like working alone, but I also really love the opportunity to talk to people. I would

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be so curious to deep dive sometime into neurodiversity and the introvert extrovert

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spectrum and where those two, it's not even a Venn diagram. I'm trying to picture like what

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shapes I would try and put on the board to, it's like a, it's a scale and a line and, and the chart,

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maybe a Venn diagram around it. Anyway. And probably changes depending on the day and

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however many stressors have occurred for exactly, but I feel like I, I have both intro and

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extroverted tendencies and however that aligns with my neurodiversity, I don't a hundred percent

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know, but it's an interesting thing as a writer to, to say like, okay, there are times when I'm

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definitely an introvert and there are times where I'm an extrovert and it's gotten, it's, it's been

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lovely to get to exercise both of those muscles. Well, that's good. So let's, I, I actually feel

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like there should be two episodes. There should be one entire episode dedicated to aftermath and how

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it came to be and why, unfortunately, despite the fact that you have, that you started writing it

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10 years ago, right? Seven, seven years ago. Seven years ago. It's still, unfortunately,

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is extremely topical. I really didn't think it still would be. I was really hoping, I mean,

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I say jokingly now, I look forward to when this book gets shelved in historical fiction,

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but even more so than that, I mean, and I, and I do, I'm not joking about that, but I, I, I really

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thought when I was writing it, that it would be more about a generation of kids and a generation

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of parents and teachers healing after this, this reality of living through, you know, most of us

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not directly experiencing school shootings and mass shootings. You know, for most of us, it is

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something that we are traumatized by in a different way as observers and thinking about it

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and worrying about it. But I really sort of thought that this book was more a meditation on

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healing and moving on as opposed to taking place really in the midst of this epidemic that is

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ongoing. I think being a parent in America right now means empathizing a lot with that kind of pain

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and fearing it and worrying about it and thinking about it and worrying about the

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damage done just by active shooter drills or, you know, however you want to extrapolate how it's

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affecting us. We are all affected. Again, that's another thing I think that exists on a spectrum.

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You know, we are certainly not affected all in the same way and the people who are directly affected

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have such a different path, but everyone living in America who is paying attention is affected in

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some way by the existence of and recurrence of mass shootings. So Aftermath was a book

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that was hard to get published. Is that right? Yes, it was hard to get published. It's still in

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some ways really hard. I mean, I'm again, I never want to overlook the positives and the gratitude.

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It has done really well and it has gotten lots of help from wonderful people. Nate Berkis chose it

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as his April 2022 Nate's Read Pick, which means a lot of people found out about the book that way.

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There was the Mathical Book Award, which you mentioned, which was wonderful and comes from

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teachers and educators. That's so meaningful to me that they are responding positively to it. There

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are so many wonderful pieces of recognition for the book and yet there's a lot of resistance to it

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because it deals with such a heavy topic. We got a lot of offers from publishers that were contingent

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on making changes. Sort of the first one, the first offer we got on this was from a lovely,

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large mainstream publisher who said, we love this book. There's just one little thing, just one tiny

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change instead of a school shooting. Can you make it the aftermath of a bus accident or a hurricane?

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That was such a moment for me of realizing what an uphill battle this was going to be. I am so

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privileged and lucky that I'm in a position where I did not financially have to take that first offer

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to get food into the mouths of my children. I think that's a whole other conversation too,

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about the privilege involved in publishing and in arts, where in order to speak our minds and

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talk about the things that are really important to us, it involves a certain amount of financial

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privilege because if you want to be principled, it costs, whether it's time or money or energy

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or whatever it is. Anyway, that's a whole other topic of conversation, but I was lucky I was in

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a position to hold on and wait to find a publisher who was not going to try and water down or

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completely obfuscate the topic of school shootings. But it took about a year and a half and this was

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the third book that I have written or that I had written at the time. I've now written, I think,

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nine and three of them I have sold. Oh my God. So that tells you there's about a 33% success rate

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for me personally and I think a lot of writers will agree. You know, everybody thinks they're

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going to be the exception or hopes to be the exception where everything you write gets

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published, but that's just unfortunately not the way it works. So I had written two other books

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beforehand that my agent had sent out and I've gotten various positive and medium feedback from

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publishers about those books and what we could do to make it happen and did I want to rewrite or

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did we want to revisit this or was it not the right time or any number of reasons. Those books got

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put in a drawer but then with Aftermath I felt like this was really the first time I couldn't

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put this book in a drawer. I said I have to. It's not that I gave up on my other books but

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it was easier to say like okay this isn't the right moment for this book or there's something

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out there that's too similar or I'm not the right person to tell this story or whatever it was.

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It was easier to say I'm gonna set this book aside and then when it came to Aftermath I couldn't set

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it aside. I felt like it was too important and it felt like I had to get this out there and start

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these conversations. I've said from the beginning I don't have the answers to any of the problems

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brought up in this book but what I do have is the ability to raise the questions and start the

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conversations and I see that as my job as an artist or a writer or an activist or whatever

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you know whatever capacity you want to think of it in is to start the conversations and so I

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knew I had to find a way to publish this book that didn't downplay the seriousness of this topic and

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with that said it's also important to note I'm not suggesting that second graders read this book. I

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am not saying that this book is universal and every family should read it all the time. I'm not even

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saying that all middle school aged kids should read this book. Not every book is for every kid

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and that's important too. It sort of comes down to the conversation being had now around book

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banning and things like that. We're not saying that every child or every human should read every

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book but that every book should be available so that the person who needs it can find it.

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So you know this is definitely this book is not for your eight-year-old. This is not even to hand

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to your 11 year old on the beach and go oh go have fun just read that you know whatever. No this is

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it's a particular kind of book but I have seen firsthand I have gone to a lot of book festivals

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and signings and things like that and experienced firsthand that feeling where or that's not a

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feeling it happens. I see a kid come up to the table where my book is and pick up the book and

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the kid starts reading and their eyes kind of light up because kids are very curious about this

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topic and they want to know more and they don't know how to start the conversation and that's why

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I wrote the book and then their parents come up and pick it up and start reading the jacket flap

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and go oh god oh no no no no or you know why did somebody write this book and you know then I'm

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sitting there and I'll be like hi I wrote this book and again it's not for everybody. I'm the

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first person to tell you you know if your eight-year-old comes up I'm going to say

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oh my gosh I'm so glad you're interested you know you're a couple years away from being ready for

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this book but let me recommend some other books for you and you know here's a sticker and a book

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mark and come back when you're ready or whatever but the reaction of parents is is so interesting

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to me and I am a parent. I am one of those parents. I could see myself in an alternate

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universe having the exact same reaction and it's always very interesting and a wake-up call to me

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and this is relating back to the book banning thing where adults are in the position to be

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gatekeepers and I believe that it is usually out of good intentions although the book banning of

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gay and trans and I mean that's that's a whole other I don't even know what to say about I mean

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it's a horrible horrible problem but I do think those people think that they are acting on the

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best interests of their children even as misguided as it is but let's just assume goodwill all around

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and that when when a parent or teacher is gatekeeping a book I think they think they're

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helping a child but really what's happening is they're not giving that child the opportunity

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to explore something. I think books are such a safe way to explore hard topics because there's

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no graphic imagery like a movie or tv show and keep in mind kids these days are playing video

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games and watching movies and things that have far more violent you know Aftermath contains

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absolutely no description of the shooting there's nothing violent or graphic in it it's about a

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shooting that happened four years earlier I'm not saying these kids are like over it because

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you're never there's no such thing as being over it but it's it's in the past and it's

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a largely about people moving on. One thing that has really struck me and I think I had to figure

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this out for myself too is that so I am I graduated from high school in 1998 and the

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Columbine shooting happened in 1999 that was by no means the first school shooting there were a

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few that happened before then but it was at the time one of the biggest and one of the most covered

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and one of the most talked about and thought to be sort of a game changer it was also at a timing

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when legislation had lapsed that had prevented that from happening before which is an important

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piece of this which is that legislation does work and that's why Columbine happened but so I never

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had to go to school in an age where school shootings were commonplace and discussed in that

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way and most parents of of kids my kids age are in the same boat you know around the same generation

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so in our generation we had fire drills depending where you grew up you had earthquake drills I know

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my parents generation had duck and cover exactly duck and cover drills you know there have always

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been drills for things like this and it does not make those events happen more frequently by having

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the drill it also doesn't keep them from happening I think the big difference is that parents are not

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of the mindset that their kids are aware of this and they think that by not reading a book about

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that about the existence of school shootings that they were protecting their kid from finding out

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about it which unfortunately is not true and the minute kids get cell phones you know they get

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news alerts I mean my kid my older kid found out about the uvalde shooting because she does the

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New York Times crossword and she opened the app and it was you know it was everywhere and we started

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talking about it and I was planning on having a conversation with her anyway but it's a reminder

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that even a parent like me who is so ensconced in this issue and whose kids obviously know about it

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I was caught off guard because I wasn't thinking that she was going to find out about it from

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the New York Times crossword puzzle but it's everywhere all to say it's so much more part of

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our culture than I think any of us want to admit but it is and pretending it's not doesn't make

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that so exactly will you give kind of your I'd say longer than an elevator pitch what is your

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summary of Aftermath what is Aftermath about great question Aftermath is a story of a young

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girl named Lucy who's 12 and she is a self-proclaimed math whiz she's a kid who loves

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math her brain works that way she sees things in terms of math she sees people and situations in

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terms of shapes and formulas and her parents moved to a new town in Virginia following their own

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massive loss which is she had a younger brother named Theo who was born with a congenital heart

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defect and passed away at the age of five after a really long protracted illness so they moved to

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this town and it happens to be a town where a school shooting happened four years earlier

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and it happened to then third graders who are now seventh graders who are now Lucy's classmates

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and she's the first person to join their school since this incident so she's the first newcomer

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sort of infiltrating this very delicate ecosystem and culture that exists after this shooting where

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they lost a lot of classmates and friends and Lucy was always looking for the math behind things

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and the reason and the statistics and the comfort of the the concrete answers and her teacher happens

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to be introducing the concept of infinity in their math class and it's the first time she's

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ever come across a mathematical construct that doesn't make sense to her and also it largely

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doesn't make sense to her classmates they are full of examples from their own lives of things

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that are not infinite and have a hard time picturing anything being infinite and that's

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a math teacher also happens to teach an after-school drama class and their focus is mime which I know

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sounds random but I promise it works and so Lucy and her new friends or her peers who become friends

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take an after-school mime class and through that you know it's a very helpful way for her to

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connect with her classmates without words and with words of course but in in a way where they're all

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sort of on equal ground and she does make friends and she does find her common ground but you know

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sort of a big hump for her is as I was mentioning before the idea of comparing grief comes up and

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for Lucy who sees everything in mathematical equations she decides to keep the death of her

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brother a secret from her new classmates because she feels like even though she lost somebody

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important to her too it's not the same you know they lost classmates in this incredibly traumatic

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sudden violent way and she lost her brother in a much more long predictable

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horrible but very expected way and she feels like those those kinds of grief are just not even on

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the same axis and how can she compare and of course she ends up discovering that through empathy we

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can all relate to each other's losses and be there for each other but I think it's very hard for her

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at the beginning to imagine that her loss is is on the same plane as some of these other losses.

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So I have currently been suffering or maybe joyfully having the experience that since I'm

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immersed in the topic of neurodiversity pretty often I start seeing it everywhere, finding

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corollaries. I feel like the main character of Aftermath is neurodivergent and it's just there's

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so many correlations that I make just by listening to you summarize it where I could just see Lucy

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being a fantastic archetype for many many neurodivergent kids out there. Well thank you,

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have you drawn that correlation yourself with her? I have, I definitely have but I did not start out

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with that intention. The point being it's also normal to me that I started to write Lucy as

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just how I imagined her and as my therapist would say I did not pathologize my characters.

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I wrote them as true and honest people, they're probably extensions of me in different ways,

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but I didn't set out writing like oh Lucy has this issue or this is how her brain works,

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it was just who she was and it made sense to me that she would try and process the world through

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math and then as I went through the revision process and then you know the publication

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process and all of this and got more readers and got more input it became very clear to me

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even just as I read it again I was like oh either she's using math as a coping mechanism

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or she might have some form of OCD in which the math thing is activated or comforting or

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you know I don't know there are so many different ways one again could pathologize that and then as

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I've researched more and more about synesthesia I also am like okay oh well she might also have some

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synesthesia and it's been really fun and gratifying to sort of unravel a little bit of

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the way Lucy's mind works as I'm also learning more about my own mind but no I didn't start out

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thinking that she was neurodivergent but I definitely by the by the end of the revision

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process of the manuscript I was fully leaned into that. I actually think that what you just

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described is the ultimate goal in representation across all spectrums the disability, race,

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ethnicity, sexual orientation that there's not a trope that a creator is trying to

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create from the beginning it's just a person and living their experience and if that person then

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portrays an experience that

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helps the consumers the audience I guess is the better term if that experience

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and that portrayal is something that the audience can identify with that is awesome and the fact

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that there was not a concerted effort on your part to write a neurodivergent heroine and I want to

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have this representation in my book makes me actually really happy. I'm so glad I love how

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you're describing that and I'm thrilled I'm so glad. But I do think and I know that they say

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everything before but could be a lie but in this case it is not however I do think she

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has got to be resonating with many many neurodivergent readers out there and seeing

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their experience reflected back so the fact that it was not intended and yet it is still happening

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is just it's just that like a gift that aftermath keeps on giving as it continues to find more and

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more audience. Your ability to create these stories and to create these characters

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is because of the way that your brain diverges and it is providing a mirror

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to people who are sitting in their space wondering

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why am I not like everyone else and then besides without having to just sit there with that

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intrusive thought of I'm not like everyone else they then are armed with information that can

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start a conversation. Right they know what questions to ask even if it's not the answer

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at least I hope I think you're right and I really hope so and also just that maybe it also for people

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reading it who whose brain doesn't work that particular way but maybe they know somebody who

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does it's giving them a doorway through which to relate to their peers or their family members to

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say like oh okay maybe this is a little peek at what their brain is like and maybe I can have empathy

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for the times when they are frustrating or embarrassing or whatever you know and I'm not

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trying to say they should be embarrassing I'm just saying like that's what tweens say about

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their parents so you know you know what I mean. I know. As always I'm very grateful to you for

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your time and I am a big fan of the work I'm really looking forward to what's coming down the pike

26:29

for Aftermath as it continues to spread its purpose all around and then also more of your

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characters and more of your books coming out. Thank you yes my next book has a very overtly

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neurodivergent character with synesthesia and it's been really fun to explore everything that

26:54

Kinean and can offer and can you know the obstacles that throws in her path and the

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gift that it is so I'm so excited to talk more about that too. When is that book coming out?

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2024 I think March 2024. Okay. She feels far away but it goes by fast so yeah it does yeah it does

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it's 2023 by the time this airs for sure so yeah yeah it will be here before we know it and it's

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wild. I will have to have you on when you can talk more about the future of Aftermath as well. Yes

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yes yes I'm excited about that. Thank you so much. Emily thank you so much I just really enjoy our

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talks. Oh I can't tell you what it means I mean it's so meaningful for me to get to like contribute

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to this discussion but also just to to have a way to talk about this stuff that for so long felt so

27:46

taboo that and you know no good comes from keeping it all bottled up it's it's wonderful to talk about

27:55

this stuff. Neuroversity is hosted and produced by Jessica Kidwell. Our audio engineer is Jaret

28:01

Nicolet at Mixtape Studios. Jaret also created our theme music graphic design for Neuroversity by

28:08

Kevin Adkins. Web support is provided by George Fox. For more information about this episode,

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ways to support the podcast, or anything related to Neuroversity, please visit our website at

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of room for more curious minds to enroll.