Welcome to This Week in Autistic Culture
Welcome to another edition of This Week in Autistic Culture, our magazine podcast that brings together the stories, conversations and ideas shaping Autistic culture each week.
With Simon away on a much-needed holiday, Angela is joined by ACPN’s Head of Finance — and her husband — Paul Kingdon. Together, they dive into journalist and broadcaster Scott Bryan’s story of discovering he was Autistic at 34, after experiencing sensory overwhelm while working at Eurovision. His lifelong love of the competition had already helped shape his career, bringing together late diagnosis, fandom and the power of special interests.
That leads into a wider conversation about what happens when a special interest becomes your job. Angela and Paul reflect on their own experiences of turning passions into professions, and ask whether something can still provide the same comfort, joy and regulation once deadlines, expectations and sensory demands become attached to it.
As always, we’ll also take you through everything coming up across the Autistic Culture Podcast Network this week, including Bridget Jones’s Diary on Still Growing Up Film Club, cultural mismatch on Autistic Standpoint Theory, sensitivity and belonging on The Neuro Complex Creative, the return of Clinical Misfits, another Neurodivergent Experience and a Friday rewind exploring Autistic productivity.
Plus, we head to the Community Notice Board for new books, research, resources and events from across the wider Autistic community, including a free programme for recently identified Autistic adults, new research into Minecraft and sensory regulation, and opportunities for Autistic young people.
🎧 Start Here: Autistic Culture Radio
Looking for a different way to experience ACPN? Autistic Culture Radio is our curated Spotify listening experience, blending music with every programme released across the Autistic Culture Podcast Network.
Updated daily, each episode is paired with carefully chosen songs inspired by its themes, creating a continuous soundtrack to Autistic culture. Save the playlist to your Spotify library and dip in whenever you want to discover new conversations, music and voices from across the network.
📻 On Air This Week:
Monday 21st September
Mindful Mondays with Ashley Dupuy
Ashley returns with another mindful reflection and guided meditation to help neurodivergent listeners begin the week with intention and regulation.
The Still Growing Up Film Club - Episode 4: How to Find the Love of Your Life and Yourself with Bridget Jones’s Diary
In this episode of The Still Growing Up Film Club, Cece Fanning opens the diary on one of the most beloved romantic comedies of all time, Bridget Jones’s Diary, and makes the case that Bridget’s story is also a coming-of-age film — just one where the person growing up happens to already be in her thirties.
From New Year’s resolutions and disastrous dates to career changes, embarrassing family gatherings and questionable romantic decisions, Cece follows Bridget as she tries to build the life she thinks she’s supposed to want. Along the way, she explores people-pleasing, masking, self-doubt, trusting your instincts and the uncomfortable feeling that everyone around you has adulthood figured out while you’re still making it up as you go.
Tuesday 22nd September
Autistic Standpoint Theory - Episode 2: Autism Is Not a Disorder, It’s a Cultural Mismatch
In this episode of Autistic Standpoint Theory, Isha Snow is joined by autistic advocate and technology professional Sam Farmer to explore what happens when autistic people are expected to navigate systems built around different ways of communicating, learning and relating to the world.
Drawing on Sam’s career in technology and his experience as an autistic self-advocate, they discuss neurodiversity-affirming support, accommodations and the importance of involving autistic people in the development of tools and services intended for their community.
Wednesday 23rd September
The Neurocomplex Creative - Season 2 Episode 3: Safe to Be Seen
In this episode of The Neurocomplex Creative, Vicki Peterson reconnects with her high school prom date and longtime friend Jesse Keene to explore sensitivity, intuition and the survival skills we carry with us from childhood into adult life.
Together, they reflect on growing up highly sensitive in difficult environments, learning to read the people around them, and how those early adaptations can develop into people-pleasing, masking and losing ourselves in order to feel safe. Jesse traces his own journey through corporate success, meditation and spiritual communities towards a more intentional life rooted in Ayurveda, healing and wellness.
Clinical Misfits - Season 2 Premiere - Episode 1: Why Are Neurodivergence, Dysautonomia and hEDS So Connected?
In this episode, Dr Mary revisits ideas explored in Season One before turning her attention to hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS), dysautonomia and their relationship with neurodivergence. She explores the potential role of chondroitin sulfate in connective tissue and the nervous system, including its involvement in structures surrounding nerve cells known as perineuronal nets.
From there, Dr Mary considers how differences in synaptic pruning could influence the way neurodivergent nervous systems process and retain signals. Using pain and the body’s autonomic response as an example, she explores a possible connection between neurological development, heightened nervous-system responses and the complex physical symptoms experienced by many neurodivergent people.
Thursday 24th September
The Neurodivergent Experience - Episode 129
Jordan James and Simon Scott return for a conversation about the Neurodivergent Experience!
📚 From the Archive - Friday 25th September
Autistic Culture Podcast Rewind – Productivity is Autistic
In this episode of The Autistic Culture Podcast, hosts Dr Angela Kingdon and Matt Lowry LPP take on the self-help mega-hit Atomic Habits by James Clear—exploring why its behaviourist strategies fail for autistic people, and what actually works when it comes to productivity in Autistic Culture.
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📌 Community Noticeboard
The Community Noticeboard is your space to share what’s happening across autistic culture. Whether you’re launching a book, hosting an event, releasing a podcast, starting a creative project, celebrating a milestone, or have something you’d like the community to know about, we’d love to hear from you.
Send your announcements, links and updates to autisticculturepodcast@gmail.com, and we’ll feature as many as we can in a future edition of This Week in Autistic Culture.
This Week’s Topics:
Books and Research:
Events:
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If you have an idea for a podcast grounded in Autistic lived experience, culture, identity, advocacy, creativity, or special interests, we’d love to hear from you.