List Of Authors Who Have ADHD And Have Written Non-ADHD Books. Can You Add To This List?

Thanks Doug,

Added

I wrote a historical novel based on the Phantom of the Opera story (Letters to Erik: the Ghost’s Love Story). I’m currently writing a fantasy series. I have ADHD and love it!

I have written several short story books for children but never had them published. The reason is that I wrote them in an ADD style, that is to say, they have frequent funny off topic comments included in the text. Of course the comments are not reallly off topic, they make perfect sense to a person with ADD. But an editor would likely say they have to go because they impede the flow of the story. I wrote the stories for my kids, and they really enjoy them, but people keep telling me I should have them published. Do you have any ideas how I could go about doing that without removing the extraneous parts? The aside comments are what sets the stories apart from about anything I have ever read…

Hi, I have ADHD and have a novel, several stories, and two books for writers out. My name is Tami Cowden. Nonfiction is under Tami D. Cowden.

I’m an author with ADHD. I’ve published one book so far called Rebellious, which is a fictional coming of age story. I am currently in the process of writing a second book.

I think I’m late to the game but…Me! I am not in the closet about it but most people assume I have anxiety because of my children’s book, Pilar’s Worries. 🙂

I recently found out I am an author with ADHD. Well, I knew I was an author…how could one not know that (right?, lol) but I didn’t know I had ADHD until I started writing a novel about a character very loosely based on myself. I already have 2 published novels, in a very different writing style than my current book, so they didn’t do anything for the ADHD realization…but my current novel? I just thought it was a funny little quirk that the main character was so tangential in his thought process (after all it’s a comedy novel). However, when I tried to reign in the character to form a more linear story I always found something was missing…like the character wasn’t himself and the story was lacking. Also, the character had other quirks that I later found out where ADHD related. Sleep issues, interrupting people when talking, always having to be told to hurry up and get in the shower or he would be late, sometimes just suddenly getting bored, never really relaxing, filling acceptable silent moments with always talking. And the lack of self-awareness and all the logical reasons he had for all of it. I do these things because…and so on. He couldn’t see it. He thought it was all normal. And the way it’s related in the story it comes off as perfectly normal. But it’s a first person story so it’s related from the character’s point of view. The character doesn’t have any issues with school, however he does find himself staring off and having random thoughts…but his high IQ compensates.

Anyway, I realized that maybe the characters tangential thought process was because I had one. Then I goodled (although Goodle hates when you use the word as a verb…google, lol) “disconnected train of thought” and BAM! a list of everything about me under the heading “symptoms of ADHD.” Everything made sense. All the things people had been telling me over the years suddenly had an explanation. The somewhat organized, sort of controlled mess I saw myself as was ADHD. My brain is in 23 places at once and I’m not having thoughts but half and third thoughts that interconnect to form ideas but not often complete thoughts on a single subject.

I always thought it was odd that writing extremely long manuscripts came naturally to me…like some sort of superpower (maybe I just have more to say that the average person?). I once finished a 715 page manuscript (which will remain unpublished for various reasons) and am currently working on one that I have to constantly reign in to make sure I don’t go over the 1640 pages I plan it to be (2 820 page volumes because KDP…amazons self-publishing portal won’t allow more than 828 in a single book and I need headroom for the copyright page, etc…and 2 volumes is quite enough thank you very much, lol). When all said and done it will be over a million words. Right now I am just shy of 250,000 and the story is right where I planned it to be. Long. LOL! Being an author with ADHD can be done…if you know your strengths and use them to your advantage. I hyper focus and words come easily o me (sometimes too easily, lol) so I use it to my advantage!

I have ADHD. It took six years to slog through my first novel when I didn’t know what I was doing and kept losing interest. After that, I was able to hyperfocus and write a few New York Times bestsellers and a dozen USA Today bestsellers in less than six years. I hit a wall with my writing when my mother died in 2019. Last year, I decided I might want to get treated for that ADHD thing I was diagnosed with many years ago. Treatment has helped tremendously!

Ashley Jade: She’s a popular romance author and she talks about her struggles with ADHD frequently in her Facebook group with her fans.

Howdy, howdy, howdy! I am a published short story writer and novelist with ADHD, diagnosed in 2013 when I was 53 years old. My first collection of short stories won the Tartt Prize for Fiction and was published by the Livingston Press of the University of West Alabama in 2011. My co-written novel won the Faulkner Prize for the Novel (Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society of New Orleans) in 2003 and was published, ineptly and unprofessionally, by the Eastern Washington University Press in 2005 as their last half-hearted effort before closing. On my own and with my cowriter I’ve published about two dozen short fictions of various lengths, styles, and genres. My writing buddy is a tremendously focused fellow who’s self-termed ‘functioning sociopath” traits work remarkably well with my ADHD Superpowers. I believe the first person who had an inkling that I was ADHD was my 6th grade (and all-time favorite) teacher, to whom I give credit for helping me become a writer so long ago. He introduced me and my classmates to The Lord of the Rings in the fall of 1970. There was only one classroom set of the trilogy, so we had to sign up and wait for the person ahead of us to finish and pass the book on. I got The Fellowship of the Ring at the beginning of Christmas break and spent most of my time sitting next to the heat register on the floor, reading. That experience channeled my energies and focus into reading and, more importantly, writing. When I got my PhD in English 25 years later, I sent a box of books to Mr. Thompson’s class (he was still teaching in the same classroom), among them four or five complete sets of TLOTR.
It’s been and continues to be a wild ride. I’ve earned an MA and an MFA in Fiction along the way, was a tenured professor for two decades at a prominent state college in the south, have been married for nearly forty years, raised two, now-adult, daughters. Right now I have 29, exactly 29!, projects ‘in tha mix.’ Completed work to be revised OLFT (one last fucking time) before being marketed. Completed work to be ‘simply’ marketed. Completed work that needs a STOW (shit-ton of work). Almost completed work that needs finishing. Etc.
I encounter tremendous obstacles on the daily in my writing; y’all know too well of what I write. Sometimes I feel like a dog in a house of squirrels trying to keep my eyes focused on a single milk bone my mistress is holding two feet from my face. (The squirrels, btw, have no scruples about scurrying all over me as I attempt to concentrate.)

Hello, I have ADHD and am an author. My debut novel is eco horror, Earthly Bodies

Me. Have had two nonfiction books published and am working on a third as well as my first fiction. Officially diagnosed with ADHD.

Hi there! I’m a writer who openly talks about my ADHD, and I’ve participated in podcasts on the subject. I write suspense/thrillers with romantic elements. My sixth novel is coming out in October. You can learn more on my website, and of course feel free to contact me with any questions. Thanks!