D.L. Recommends: Autistic Joy Edition

let me share some of my special interests with youuuuuuuuuu

yup, that’s me. dressing up as an existentially anxious elf for the Rose City Comic Con :)

Hey friends,

For many years now I have had a newsletter called D.L. Recommends. I used it as a way to update folks on all my freelance articles, books, and weird side projects (I have . . . always had a lot going on). But mostly, it was a place where I could recommend whatever weird things I had been into lately! I’m going to slowly phase out that newsletter (after I get my Dorothy Day book launched into the world), but I thought it would be fun to do the same format here.

Now that I know I am autistic, it makes a lot of sense why it was so important for me to share my recs with people. Autistic people LOVE to share what they are into¹. I struggle with black and white thinking, which can get overwhelming if you are involved in activism or trying to reform a large and corrupt institution (like I was, writing primarily for white evangelical audiences from 2010-2020). My books and articles were the places I could engage with my big questions and concerns about the world, struggling through themes of racism, immigration, ethics, theology, and more. But I was also just a big weird nerd who was trying their darndest to survive. And books, TV shows, podcasts, food, and all sorts of weird things helped me get through the day. 

So today, that’s what this newsletter is going to be. Just one long D.L. Recommends—including a super secret weird autistic lady playlist I have put together on Spotify—and I hope you join in and put your own recs in the comments!

For now, let’s just jump right into the delight.