About the Author

Cynthia J. Patton is a public interest attorney, autism advocate, consultant, speaker, and founder of the nonprofit organization, Autism A to Z. She attended the University of California, Davis, where she received a BS in Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning with a Minor in English as well as a JD. She was the Editor-in-Chief of ENVIRONS: The U.C. Davis Environmental Law & Policy Journal. Prior to autism entering her life, Cynthia worked as an environmental attorney, scientific editor, and advocated on behalf of organizations such as the Sierra Club and Save The Bay. Cynthia has published nonfiction, poetry, and two books on wetland protection and restoration. She hosts the monthly Whistlestop Writers Open Mic in Livermore, CA, and co-produces and hosts Storied Nights: An Evening of Spoken Word. Her award-winning work has appeared in twelve anthologies, including the best-selling Chicken Soup for the Soul series, plus numerous print and online publications as well as her blog, An Unplanned Life. Two of her stories have been performed on stage. This is her first poetry collection. Cynthia teaches writing workshops and is completing a memoir, My Guardian Angel Sings the Blues, on her unconventional journey to motherhood. The Northern California native lives with her daughter and an exceedingly rowdy dog and cat. Learn more about her life and work at CynthiaJPatton.com

Reviews

In this marvelous collection, Patton, a single mother, explores what it means to parent an adopted, autistic child. Poems touch on the challenges of divorce then dating, teaching social skills, and the difficulty of communicating with her daughter, but what shines through most is love. Patton's words inspire us to find delight in even the smallest of things. Jennifer Simpson, Director of DimeStories International and Editor of I Write Because... **** Poetry should find us and hold us, especially in the moments of our lives that inevitably define us. The poems in Across an Aqueous Moon: Travels in Autism accomplish this and more. Patton writes eloquently about her daughter and autism, including diagnosis and discovery, loss and acceptance, but most importantly, love. Patton reminds us that even when confronting disability, "hope blooms amidst the grass of doubt." Connie Post, Author of Floodwater, When The Sun Drops, and Trip Wires; Poet Laureate of Livermore, California, 2005-2009; and Host of the Valona Deli Poetry Series **** "I am haunted by the mystery of you" Patton says of her autistic daughter, sometimes "bald and blistered" by grief and fear for that child's future and other times able to marvel at the "Secret Garden" within. The book is a journey every mother must take to carry her child "not where I had planned but / wherever you must go." On it, Patton discovers reservoirs of fortitude and hope she did not know she possessed. She learns to be grateful for what is-"[e]very time you say something new, I throw a party in my head"-rather than what could have been. In her world, the "special" child becomes the one who, instead of shunning her daughter, makes an effort to play with her. "My love is a song I long to sing" Patton says in one poem, but really, she says it in every poem in a book that is heartfelt, honest, brave, and brimming with a mother's love. Rebecca Foust, Award-winning Poet and Author of Paradise Drive, God, Seed, and All that Gorgeous Pitiless Song *** Those of us with children often feel as if we've been exiled to a stark and lonely moon, locked in helpless orbit around the world we used to inhabit. As the mother of an autistic child, Cynthia Patton knows a deeper, more disorienting kind of isolation. Instead of the moon, she is given only its reflection wavering over dark waters. Across an Aqueous Moon: Travels in Autism is a journey measured out in shimmering refractions that reveal upended dreams and discarded expectations, unanticipated joys, and strength forged from acceptance. These spare, elegant poems grant us access to what the world sees as "a walled garden with no key to its door," where shadows of grief give way to the light of this mother's fierce, shining love. Susan Bono, Founding Editor of Tiny Lights: A Journal of Personal Narrative and Author of What Have We Here: Essays about Keeping House and Finding Home