The Neurodiversity Justice Bookshelf: A Living Archive for the Movement
By Bridgette Hamstead
The Neurodiversity Justice Bookshelf is not just a book club, it’s a living archive of literature for the NeuroJustice movement. Presented by Fish in a Tree: Center for Neurodiversity Education, Advocacy, and Activism in partnership with the Neurodiversity Coalition of America, this global program is designed to spotlight books that speak truth to power through a neurodivergent lens. Over the course of an entire year, twelve books will serve as catalysts for international conversations rooted in neurodiversity justice, the collective fight for dignity, equity, and liberation for all neurodivergent people, especially those who are multiply marginalized.
Each month, a selected book becomes the centerpiece of a live event series, with featured authors, speakers, and thought leaders joining me and other special guests for a public LinkedIn Live conversation. These sessions aren’t polished PR interviews or promotional fluff, they are real conversations grounded in lived experience, systems critique, and radical reimagining. They are a call to remember what we’ve survived and to build a future where our stories, ideas, and leadership are no longer erased.
The goals of the program are both practical and profound. We want to amplify the voices of neurodivergent authors who are writing from a justice-centered perspective, creating a curated canon of works that reflect the priorities of our movement. We want to build bridges between writers, educators, organizers, professionals, and community members, making space for dialogue that doesn’t just educate but galvanizes. We want to center intersectionality, highlight books written by queer, trans, disabled, BIPOC, low-income, and otherwise marginalized authors. Most of all, we want to hold public space for the kind of conversations that move us from personal story to collective strategy.
We are currently seeking submissions from neurodivergent authors with new or forthcoming books (2023–2026). Books must be authored by neurodivergent people, including self-diagnosed and community-recognized writers, and must directly align with the principles of neurodiversity justice. That means we’re looking for books that explore how neurodivergence intersects with criminal justice and incarceration, environmental justice and climate survival, inclusive education and pedagogy, healthcare inequity, policing and law enforcement, structural ableism, queer and trans liberation, racial and class justice, workplace transformation, and systems change more broadly. This is not a shelf for palatable representation. It’s for those telling the truth.
Here’s how it works: One book will be selected and featured each month in 2026. On the last Tuesday of that month at 7:00 PM CST, the author will join our founding director, Bridgette Hamstead, and sometimes another featured guest, for a live conversation on LinkedIn. The book and author will also be promoted across Fish in a Tree’s Substack (From the Desk of Bridgette Hamstead), our organizational blog, LinkedIn business page, and email newsletters. Each book will also be added to our Neurodiversity Justice Library, our physical and growing archive of movement texts.
Submitting your work is easy. Authors and publishers are invited to send a letter of interest to bridgette@fishinatreenola.org. Please include your name and contact info, book title and publication date, a short summary of your book and how it aligns with neurodiversity justice, a brief statement on your neurodivergent identity and lived experience, and why you’d like to be part of this project. If your book is selected, we’ll also ask you to send us a physical copy for use during the live show and for inclusion in the Justice Library.
Speakers, movement leaders, and special guests interested in co-hosting or appearing in a live discussion are also invited to submit letters of interest. Please include your name, short bio, a brief description of the topic or theme you'd like to speak to in alignment with neurodiversity justice, any relevant lived experience or professional expertise, and why you’d like to join a public conversation as part of The Neurodiversity Justice Bookshelf series. Special guests may be paired with authors whose work intersects with their focus or experience, or may be invited to join a month’s conversation based on shared movement priorities.
Selected authors receive far more than just a one-hour spotlight. They receive global book promotion across professional, academic, and community audiences; a feature article hosted on our blog, Substack, and LinkedIn page; a highly visible public event that boosts visibility and book sales; and long-term inclusion in our movement archive. Guest speakers and co-hosts also benefit from platform access, a dedicated feature story, cross-channel promotion, and alignment with a growing justice-centered public education initiative.
We’re also opening up sponsorship opportunities for organizations, foundations, and companies that want to support this work. Sponsoring a single month starts at just $250 and includes a three-minute speaking spot at the beginning of that month’s live event, recognition across all platforms, and a sponsor feature article across all three major Fish in a Tree outlets. Higher sponsorship tiers are available for those wanting to support the bookshelf more deeply or across multiple months. To learn more or become a sponsor, email bridgette@fishinatreenola.org.
What sets this project apart is our commitment to justice, not tokenism. This is a canon-building project for neurodivergent people making real structural change, not a bookshelf of flattened narratives. It’s curated and hosted by neurodivergent leaders. It is justice-defined. It’s deeply integrated into our broader educational, consulting, and policy work, and it builds power by centering truth for neurodivergent communities.
Over time, we hope this project will help establish a lasting archive of literature by and for the movement. We want to amplify and uplift marginalized neurodivergent voices, model literary programming rooted in accessibility and critique, and build bridges across disciplines and movements using story, scholarship, and resistance. This is how we shift culture, by telling the truth out loud, and letting it echo.