FAQ
Q: How can I help?
Please visit our indiegogo page and donate if you can! Spread the word—check out our Facebook page and twitter account, tell your friends and family, and generally make some noise. Spread our submissions guidelines around!
Q: I’d love to tell people I know about the project but I have anxiety/I have trouble with language/I need a script. Help?
Have some scripts!
Q: Is this just an anthology?
The anthology we’re fundraising for is intended to serve as our founding document, as our manifesto, to guide the rest of the project. But it’s only our starting point—there’s a lot more to the project than that. We are not one person, or even one small group of people, writing one thing. The Loud Hands Project is a structured, creative, and ongoing way to record, nurture, and amplify the many different identities, voices, and ways of speaking and knowing that the Autistic community has—and then use the formal, established platform, weight and connections ASAN has to share them further than has ever been possible before. The anthology is our very first effort and how we plan to get our name out there, but it’s only the beginning of what we’re planning to be: a comprehensive publishing and creative media platform.
Q: What other components does this project have?
Wouldn’t you like to know! Take a look at our project description—we’ve got a lot planned. AND we’re inherently community-directed and submissions-driven, which means we ask the Autistic community what it wants to have published, and then we work to document and distribute that on a large scale, beyond our usual audiences and out into the real world, not just the blogosphere. We strive to represent the incredible diversity of the Autistic community in all our future publications—and we are an incredibly diverse community. We’ll never run out of things to say. We’ll also never run out of ways to say it—The Loud Hands Project is a transmedia project, which means we use multiple forms of content–written words, videos, and more. If you can think of something you’d like to see, please use our Submit featureand let us know—we’ll take it into consideration.
Q: I’m an organization interested in working with or supporting The Loud Hands Project. Who do I talk to?
Drop your contact info here. We’ll keep it private, and Julia will get in touch with you.
Q: You know your video for indiegogo isn’t a perfect visual representation of the Autistic community, right?
Yep! We made this video in 48 hours on a $0 budget using open submissions on tumblr and a small, physically available on zero-notice group of Autistic college students. The video is not meant to serve as any kind of total representation—there are only two POC participants, the M/F diagnostic ratio seems to have been reversed, a significantly higher than statistically probable amount of the participants identify as queer, we’re all quite young, etc. More and different kinds of videos will be forthcoming, and as more people learn about and get involved with the project and more specific outreach is undertaken, we hope to become more genuinely representative.
Q: Is The Loud Hands Project a youth-focused effort?
Nope. While youth organizing is an important and valuable part of any sort of broader social justice movement, and specific components of the project are being planned for specific demographics including youth and kids still in school, The Loud Hands Project is inclusive of all ages. The specific components being fundraised for right now are designed around the needs of the entire Autistic community, of which youth are an important part. Contributors of all ages are welcomed; please stay tuned for future projects!
Q: Why should I donate my money to some internet stranger?
You shouldn’t! Thankfully, donations for The Loud Hands Project don’t go to some random faceless person, but to ASAN. ASAN has been around as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization for five years and has earned a reputation for integrity, follow-through, and trustworthiness.
In terms of specific budget breakdown, a portion is reserved as a stipend for the time and energy I (Julia Bascom) have invested into the creation and maintenance of the project and campaign—about 30 hours a week behind the scenes. The rest of the funds are going towards a combination of printing costs, advertising, website development, travel as we take the project on the road, and development to ensure that the project does not stop at the anthology but continues to evolve and expand and respond to the needs of the Autistic community.
Q: Aren’t there a lot of books by Autistic people already published? How is this different?
You know the saying ”If we see far, it’s because we stand on the shoulders of giants”? It’s like that.
The Loud Hands Project can be thought of as an expansion of what’s been done before. There have been a lot of publications by Autistic people in the past which have created an awareness that we do in fact have valuable things to say and interesting ways to say them. Now there is a need for a comprehensive and creative organizing force led by Autistic people ourselves to project our voices further. That’s the goal of The Loud Hands Project.
