Moth Storytellers
John Elder Robison
John Elder Robison grew up in a world of machines. At 16 he was lord and master of a small tractor and a CDC3600 computer. By age 20, he’d moved on to more sophisticated devices, and found himself in jail on a small Caribbean island. At 21, he was the engineer for KISS, where he designed their signature special effects guitars. In search of greater challenges, John went on to design power systems for our country’s last underground nuclear tests, which led him to establish a business restoring Bentley, Land Rover, and Mercedes motorcars. He continues to oversee that business today, in Springfield, Massachusetts. He is also the Neurodiversity Scholar at The College of William & Mary, in Williamsburg, Virginia and a Visiting Professor of Practice at Bay Path University in Longmeadow. John is the NY Times bestselling author of Look Me in the Eye, Be Different, Raising Cubby, and Switched On. He has appeared on a number of radio and television shows, and also written numerous articles and essays, including the definitive work on Diagnosis of Noises in Land Rover Engines, and a fine monograph on how autistic Polynesians may have colonized the southwest Pacific. He lives in Western Massachusetts with his family and an Imperial Chinese War Pug.