Cammie McGovern

“Hard Landings is a fiercely intelligent book—patiently researched, conscionably hopeful, deeply essential. It is also a riveting read, powered by a mother’s certain love.”
—Beth Kephart, National Book Award finalist and author of Wife | Daughter | Self: a memoir in essays

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A game-changing exploration of what the future holds for the first generation of mainstreamed neurodiverse kids that is coming of age. After sleepless nights, intensive research, and twenty-one years of raising a child, Ethan, with autism and intellectual disability, Cammie McGovern is approaching a distinct catch-22. Once Ethan turns twenty-two, he will fall off the “Disability Cliff.” By aging out of the school system, he’ll lose access to most social, educational, and vocational resources. The catch is this: These resources, limited as they may be, have trained Ethan in skills for jobs that don’t exist and a life he can’t have.

Cammie McGovern is the author of two books for young adults, SAY WHAT YOU WILL and A STEP TOWARD FALLING, and two books for middle-grade readers, JUST MY LUCK and CHESTER AND GUS. All feature young people with a variety of disabilities at the center. She has been widely honored for her work advocating on behalf of people with disabilities and her books have been called “joyful, inspiring and unforgettable,” by Katherine Applegate. She has also written three adult novels and is one of the proud founders of Whole Children/Milestones, a resource center for children and young adults with disabilities and their families. She lives in Amherst, MA with her husband and three sons, the oldest of whom is autistic.