Not Just Anything

For anyone who reads original poetry, this is an excellent read. Donna Williams has a unique talent for creative writing and this collection of poetry takes the reader on a journey of powerful emotions. The poetry is good, unusual and full of personal feelings experienced by the author. The poems are sometimes tear-jerking and at other times so full of humour that you want to laugh out loud. This book leaves a deep and lasting impression, helping to break down the barriers we all feel safer using when thinking of people who are ‘different’. The author shows us that she is an individual and competently takes us into her confidence until we see clearly how she sees, making the reader question their own view of life. The poetry is original in its own use of language, the author making us see the world from a different angle in poems like `Peace’ in which she describes her addiction to fear and `Terrorist’ in which she explains some of her anger and frustration.’

– Good Autism Practice

Not Just Anything is a mosaic of logic, passion and philosophical musings by Donna Williams, sometimes jolting, sometimes moving, often illuminating. In it Donna takes you on a poetic adventure into places past, present and beyond. Often intertwined with the world of autistic experience, her writings divulge with immediacy, a person in the grip of overload and shutdowns, of extreme sensory and emotional highs and passions, of alienation from self, from body and fear of the intensity of emotion, of the struggle to know self, to communicate, to comprehend. At other times, her writing somehow transcends the often assumed limitations of autism, and she dissects so many of the concepts we take for granted, bringing us face to face with our own social constructions of `reality’ and so called ‘normality’ in a way only Donna can.