Lisette Auton

“I work with words in all their forms: as an author and playwright, a film and theatre maker, as a solo artist, with collaborators, and alongside wonderful humans as a creative practitioner and mentor. Disabled, neurodivergent and northern, some say I’m a word artist, I say I do stuff with words.

My debut middle grade novel THE SECRET OF HAVEN POINT was published by Puffin in February 2022, THE STICKLEBACK CATCHERS followed in February 2023. I’m an award-winning poet; the 2019 Early Careers Fellow for Literature at Cove Park; on the TSS Publishing list of Best British & Irish Flash Fiction; and winner of The Journal Culture Award 2021 for Performance of the Year for WRITING THE MISSING – A RIVER CYCLE commissioned by Durham Book Festival.

You'll find my work in galleries, online, in theatres and bookshops, as well as random places such as laundrettes and railway station waiting rooms.

I identify as disabled and neurodivergent. That’s positive, powerful and political. There’s nowt wrong with me, but there is something wrong with a society which seeks to blame, shame, ignore, terrorise and disappear disabled people. I believe that although language and impairment needs can sometimes divide us, we are much more powerful together."

To find out more about Lisette: https://lisetteauton.co.uk/

Twitter: @lisette_auton
Instagram: @lisette_auton
Facebook: Lisette Auton

DASH WAIWAV Project

Lisette was one of 31 d/Deaf, Disabled and Neurodivergent artists to take part in the DASH award winning project: We Are Invisible We Are Visible (WAIWAV).The artists staged Dada inspired interventions in 30 museums and galleries across Britain and Northern Ireland on 2 July 2022 only, marking the 102nd anniversary of the 1st Dada International Exhibition in Berlin.

Lisette's intervention, 'Writing the Missing – The aDdress' took place at MIMA, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art. Find out more.

Visit the Project website waivav.org

Visit the DASH Project page

A Rough Guide to Ceilings, by Lisette Auton, is the first of five films that were commissioned by DASH in 2020 as part of the Awkward Bastards at Home project.
You can watch the film on our YouTube channel here:

Of the commission, Liz said: "It's been properly lush to work with DASH. As soon as I saw the title of the project, I was in! Having the time and space (and pay) to think about what's important to me as a disabled artist right now, what my world looks like, and the opportunity to creatively play with those thoughts was a wonderful experience.

That DASH was willing to take a risk on my jumbled thoughts - 'it'll be summat like this, though probably not, there will be rage, and I think I want to talk about my ceiling' - felt like I had an organisation in my corner who completely understands and supports the way artists work, that at the beginning of a process you don't always know the end result, and that's okay."