Just because no-one understands you

I guess your abnormal these days if you don't feel special or different!

Start a movement, do a couple of blantant self-publicity stunts which will probably lose you your jobs and bish-bash-bosh you will be courted by a publisher.

(Oh that was a bit sarky, sorry!!!!!) But...to get your stuff published...well, you could either finance it yourself, you would have to look at the cost of self publishing (ie print runs), but the major problem is always going to be distribution (book shops have a lot of buyer power)...Or, you could target publishers you think would be interested. Publish some of your stuff online? (Is turning a profit essential?) Good luck!!!

Good luck for your project, Sean!
Just taking the 'apartness/distance' part of your question for a moment, I think my brother and my uncle, sufferers of autism, are the most 'distant' people I have ever come across. They barely acknowledge people. A friend came round my house one day and described my brother as a 'kind of walking ghost'.
I think that's why people who proclaim themselves as 'different' don't really strike me as 'different', after all, they can at least use language to express their 'difference', and if that expression is understood by another person, then they can't be that different, can they?

More pertinently to your question, there is a 'Writer's Handbook' with loads of addresses you could try. My friend is studying a Creative Writing course at St. Andrews' so I shall hunt out the proper title for you!

My girlfriend and I have worked with SEN pupils so I agree with you Will>I feel like joe average#my problem~unworthiness>>but not to a ^creep^ degree. My publishing contact says that a group of first time authors doing an anthology won't get published and:

^it would have helped if the stories weren't [unintentionally] potentially offensive to several major religions and national and local sensibilities^

Ha! Ha! That's cool. I'm sure there are some periodicals as well, that could help you - 'The Writer' and that ilk. I think - make a 'teaser' website (maybe with Flash?) to drum up interest in the book first.

Sorry Sean, read your post again - it does strike me as odd that your contract won't let you publish your anthology...?!

You need to sort out your punctuation too.

Write the stories. Then afterward whoever the editors are will sit down together and see if there are sales points, eg. are the writers young and cute? Do any of you have weird or interesting jobs, or Raymond Carver jobs ie. underpaid fry cooks? Be a little bit media-savvy about what you are doing, and then find out who some cool editors are at a major publishing house and PHONE THEM about your project when you can make good soundbites about it. Ask for meetings. DO NOT send the collection to the slush pile!

There is nothing young editors like more than finding new, young, promotable literary talent. It makes them feel hip. But you hav e to know how to play the game a little or they'll go jaded and won't even read the submissions because they are lazy sods too.

Guess I should get on with it pronto

Think of it as the equivalent of what I'm using NaMoWriMo for, actually testing to see if I can write extended fiction pieces (to my delight, I am, or at least ones that interest me enough to keep going with them). You've set yourself the goal, go forth from there. :-)

photocopy yr stories, staple them together and tada! you r published! (admittedly not a good solution if you want $ and/or distribution beyond yr hometown)