The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors.
Oliver Wolf Sacks, was a British neurologist, naturalist, historian of science, and writer. Born in Britain, Sacks received his medical degree in 1958 from The Queen's College, Oxford, before moving to the United States, where he spent most of his career. He interned at Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco and completed his residency in neurology and neuropathology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). After a fellowship at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, he served as neurologist at Beth Abraham Hospital's chronic-care facility in the Bronx, where he worked with a group of survivors of the 1920s sleeping sickness encephalitis lethargica, who had been unable to move on their own for decades. His treatment of those patients became the basis of his 1973 book Awakenings, which was adapted into an Academy Award-nominated feature film in 1990, starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro.
Mary Temple Grandin is an American scientist, academic and animal behaviorist. She is a prominent proponent for the humane treatment of livestock for slaughter and the author of more than 60 scientific papers on animal behavior. Grandin is a consultant to the livestock industry, where she offers advice on animal behavior, and is also an autism spokesperson.
The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, formerly the Samuel Johnson Prize, is an annual British book prize for the best non-fiction writing in the English language. It was founded in 1999 following the demise of the NCR Book Award. With its motto "All the best stories are true", the prize covers current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the arts. The competition is open to authors of any nationality whose work is published in the UK in English. The longlist, shortlist and winner is chosen by a panel of independent judges, which changes every year. Formerly named after English author and lexicographer Samuel Johnson, the award was renamed in 2015 after Baillie Gifford, an investment management firm and the primary sponsor. Since 2016, the annual dinner and awards ceremony has been sponsored by the Blavatnik Family Foundation.
Diagnoses of autism have become more frequent since the 1980s, which has led to various controversies about both the cause of autism and the nature of the diagnoses themselves. Whether autism has mainly a genetic or developmental cause, and the degree of coincidence between autism and intellectual disability, are all matters of current scientific controversy as well as inquiry. There is also more sociopolitical debate as to whether autism should be considered a disability on its own.
Neurodiversity, neurodivergence, or neurovariance, refers to variations in the human brain and cognition, for instance in sociability, learning, attention, mood and other mental functions.
The autism rights movement, also known as the autistic acceptance movement, is a social movement within the context of disability rights that emphasizes a neurodiversity paradigm, viewing the autism spectrum as a result of natural variations in the human brain rather than as a disease to be cured. The movement advocates for several goals, including greater acceptance of autistic traits and behaviors; services that focus on improving quality of life and well-being rather than on suppression and masking of autistic traits, or imitations of the behaviors of neurotypical (non-autistic) peers ; the creation of social networks and events that allow autistic people to socialize on their own terms; and the recognition of the autistic community as a minority group.
Ole Ivar Løvaas was a Norwegian-American clinical psychologist and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is most well known for his research on what is now called applied behavior analysis (ABA) to teach autistic children through prompts, modeling, and positive reinforcement. The therapy is also noted for its former use of aversives (punishment) to reduce undesired behavior.
John Donvan is a journalist, broadcaster and debate moderator whose bestselling book, In a Different Key: The Story of Autism, was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist. He serves as host of the Intelligence Squared US, a debate series dedicated to raising the level of public discourse in America.
The term self-advocacy, which means speaking up for oneself and one's interests, is used as a name for civil rights movements and mutual aid networks for disabled people. The term arose in the broader civil rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and is part of the disability rights movement. In North America the self-advocacy movement is led by a national organization called Self Advocates Becoming Empowered (SABE) and is supported by organizations such as ACT in the United States, LiveWorkPlay in Canada and internationally through the organization People First.
Manuel F. Casanova is the SmartState Endowed Chair in Childhood Neurotherapeutics and a professor of Biomedical Sciences at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville. He is a former Gottfried and Gisela Kolb Endowed Chair in Outpatient Psychiatry and a Professor of Anatomical Sciences and Neurobiology at the University of Louisville.
Alexander Plank is an American autism advocate, filmmaker, actor, and the creator of Wrong Planet. He is known for founding the online community Wrong Planet, working on FX's television series The Bridge, and acting on The Good Doctor. At the age of 9, Plank was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. Plank started Wrong Planet at the age of 17 in order to find others like him on the Internet. After the popularity of Wrong Planet grew, Plank has been frequently mentioned in the mainstream media in articles relating to autism, Asperger's, and autism rights.
Sy Montgomery is a German born, American naturalist, author and scriptwriter who writes for children as well as adults. She is author of 34 books, including The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness, which was a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction and was on The New York Times Best Seller list. Her popular book The Good Good Pig, is the international bestselling memoir of life with her pig, Christopher Hogwood. National best sellers listed on The New York Times Best Seller list include How To Be A Good Creature: A Memoir in 13 Animals, and Becoming A Good Creature. Other notable titles include Journey of the Pink Dolphins, Spell of the Tiger, and Search for the Golden Moon Bear. Her book for children, Quest for the Tree Kangaroo: An Expedition to the Cloud Forest of New Guinea was the recipient of the 2007 Orbis Pictus Award and was selected as an Honor book for the Sibert Medal. Her book Kakapo Rescue: Saving The World's Strangest Parrot won the Sibert Medal in 2010. She is the winner of the 2009 New England Independent Booksellers Association Nonfiction Award, the 2010 Children’s Book Guild Nonfiction Award, the Henry Bergh Award for Nonfiction and dozens of other honors.
Steve Silberman is an American writer for Wired magazine and has been an editor and contributor there for 14 years. In 2010, Silberman was awarded the AAAS "Kavli Science Journalism Award for Magazine Writing." His featured article "The Placebo Problem" discussed the impact of placebos on the pharmaceutical industry.
Avery Publishing is a book publishing imprint of the Penguin Group, founded as an independent publisher in 1976 by Rudy Shur and partners, and purchased by Penguin in 1999. The current president is veteran publisher William Shinker. Their offices were located at one time in Garden City, New York, home to other publisher's offices.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 2015.
Julia Bascom is an American autism rights activist. She is the current Executive Director of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) and replaced Ari Ne'eman as president of ASAN in early 2017.
In a Different Key: The Story of Autism is a book by John Donvan and Caren Zucker. The book covers the history of autism and autism advocacy. Issues that they discuss include the Refrigerator mother theory and the possibility of an autism epidemic. One autistic individual they cover in particular is Donald Triplett. Another point they covered was psychiatrist Leo Kanner. This book has additionally discussed the debate concerning the neurodiversity movement, especially with respect to low-functioning autistics.
Loving Lampposts is a 2010 documentary film directed by Todd Drezner, exploring the neurodiversity movement and the principle of autism acceptance through a series of interviews and candid footage. Drezner is the father of an autistic child whose attachment to and fascination with lampposts gave the film its title.
Jill Escher is a former attorney and real estate developer. She is the head of the Escher Fund for Autism, the immediate past president of the Autism Society of America San Francisco Bay Area chapter, and the president of the National Council on Severe Autism. Escher is a graduate of Stanford University and the UC Berkeley School of Law.
