Joanne Limburg: Autism, Feminism, Motherhood, Grief, Writing, Jewishness, Letters to my Weird Sisters

Ben Yeoh Chats

Joanne Limburg is an award-winning British writer known for her poetry, novels, and memoirs. In the podcast, she discusses her latest book Letters to My Weird Sisters: On Autism, Feminism, and Motherhood, in which she feels a kinship with historical female figures and addresses letters to them.

Some notes on the conversation:

- On Virginia Woolf: Joanne found connections in Woolf's personal writings about feeling like an outsider and struggling to dress appropriately for society. This resonated with Joanne's own experiences. We chatted on how dress and fashion is seen in society.

- On Adelheid Bloch: Adelheid was murdered in the Holocaust. Joanne wanted to write her a letter as an act of solidarity, to say she is not forgotten.

Adelheid Bloch. (She is mostly non-speaking). She was a young woman who was murdered as part of the Nazi program of murdering intellectually disabled people or disabled people of any kind. We have nothing of her voice. We have only a few records, a very sad record and the words that condemned her to death which were horrible words; idiot, unworthy of life. I was thinking about those two words and how we stand in the shadow of them and what they meant for her, and what is the supposed link between them. So my letter to her is kind of exploring history because there's not much of her to say. Also, I wanted to write a letter to her to say, "You are not left out. You are a sister too, and I apologize for all the times you have been left out."

And,

…it was a matter of great importance that I write this letter to Adelheid and that people see that she's human and that she's not totally different from me. Because there's an issue in sort of discourse around autism, as I'm sure, sure. There's a difference between high functioning and low functioning. So there's constant stress between splitters and lumpers as there is with any classification.

We can't possibly be the same thing or we all are the same thing. Also, I tend to lump not because I particularly want to get all the attention that people imagine comes from being severely afflicted. It doesn't. I think actually what you get from being seen to be severely afflicted is ignored and pushed aside, not massive amounts of attention. But because I think it's safer if we hang onto them. If you can't have solidarity with someone as opposed to pity or care, they're not safe because they're outside identification. “

- On autism and motherhood: Joanne realized the so-called "refrigerator mothers" blamed for autism were likely neurodivergent themselves, profoundly misunderstood. The misreading led to damaging views of autism.

“ it seemed glaringly obvious to me that these so-called refrigerator mothers were neurodivergent, and that their neurodivergent presentation was being horribly unkindly and disastrously misread.”

- On grief: Joanne wrote a book after her brother's death aiming to create something beautiful, a monument. Grief comes in waves and is still raw for some types of loss.

- On writing: Joanne listens for an "echo" when writing, for something unexpected to emerge. She moved from notebooks to typing, which matches her thought speed better. Teaching helps crystalize her own thinking.

I know of some others who find typing better than notebooks.

- On advice: Joanne stresses compassion for oneself and others. She is drawn to how language shapes reality and is exploring that in current poetry and lyric essay work.

The conversation covers writing as therapy, Jewish identity, and navigating societal expectations as a woman and mother. Joanne offers deep insights from a life spent exploring profound human experiences through writing.

There is a transcript link here which also has video if you find captions or video a more accessible platform.