Autism Awareness Day 2013
DATE: 11 Apr 2013LOCATION: Cardinal Foley Campus Center
Maguire Campus interactive campus map
Saint Joseph's University
5600 City Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19131
START: 11:30 AM
END: 1:00 PM
Featuring Kathy Lette; Kathy first achieved succés de scandale as a teenager with the novel 'Puberty Blues', which was made into a major film, directed by Bruce Beresford and an 8 hour mini series. After several years as a singer with the Salami Sisters and a newspaper columnist in Sydney and New York (collected in the book 'Hit and Ms') and as a television sitcom writer for Columbia Pictures in Los Angeles, her novels, 'Puberty Blues', 'Girls Night Out', 'The Llama Parlour', 'Foetal Attraction', 'Mad Cows', 'Altar Ego', 'Nip'n'Tuck', 'Dead Sexy' and 'How To Kill Your Husband (and other handy household hints)' (recently staged by The Victorian Opera, Australia) became international best-sellers. Her novels have been published in 14 languages around the world. Kathy appears regularly as a guest on the BBC and Sky news. Her latest non-fiction book is 'Men - A User's Guide.' She lives in London with her husband and two children. Career highlights include a stint as writer in Residence at London's Savoy Hotel, receiving an honorary doctorate from Solent Southampton University in 2010, and teaching Stephen Fry a word. (Misogamist. Look it up.) Kathy is also an ambassador for Women and Children First, Plan International, and The White Ribbon Alliance. 'The best thing about being a writer,' she says, 'is that you get to work in your jammies all day, drink heavily on the job and have affairs and call it research.' (Although her husband says he should have the affair as it would give her a better book.) Her newest novel is 'The Boy Who Fell to Earth.'
Whether commentating on current affairs on CNN or BBC, Lette is well known for being candid. 'I only write novels because it's cheaper than therapy.' Kathy's novels have discussed: virginity, embarrassments of pregnancy and childbirth, motherhood angst, the horrors of aging, marriage, menopause, and mastitis. The one thing Lette has not spoken about publicly until more recently is her son who has Asperger's syndrome. Lette's most recent novel, 'The Boy Who Fell To Earth,' tells the joy, terror, frustration, heartbreak, and hilarity of raising a child on the Autism spectrum. 'I no longer think that people are 'normal' or 'abnormal'. I think they are ordinary or extraordinary. And children with Asperger's are like Wikipedia with a pulse, and yet can't get the correct change from the corner store.' She continues, 'Kids with autism often feel they're drowning in their own brain waves, as do their parents. I hope my talk will offer a small linguistic life raft.'
'The Boy Who Fell To Earth' celebrates eccentricity and being different, and is about to be made into a feature film.
