Words Fail Us - In Defence of Disfluency

A lifelong stutterer dismantles the cult of fluency and champions the creative powers of inarticulacy.

About the author

Jonty Claypole is an arts leader, producer and writer. He received an MBE for his role supporting British culture through the pandemic.

Summary

'TIMELY' David Mitchell

'MOVING ... REMARKABLE' SUNDAY TIMES

'ONE OF THOSE RARE BOOKS I HADN'T REASLISED I'D BEEN WAITING FOR UNTIL I READ IT.' Owen Sheers

'OPEN-MINDED, THOUGHTFUL AND WISE... A LIBERATING BOOK' Colm Toibin

In an age of polished TED talks and overconfident political oratory, success seems to depend upon charismatic public speaking. But what if hyper-fluency is not only unachievable but undesirable?

Jonty Claypole spent fifteen years of his life in and out of extreme speech therapy. From sessions with child psychologists to lengthy stuttering boot camps and exposure therapies, he tried everything until finally being told the words he'd always feared: 'We can't cure your stutter.' Those words started him on a journey towards not only making peace with his stammer but learning to use it to his advantage.

Here, Jonty argues that our obsession with fluency could be hindering, rather than helping, our creativity, authenticity and persuasiveness. Exploring other speech conditions, such as aphasia and Tourette's, and telling the stories of the 'creatively disfluent' - from Lewis Carroll to Kendrick Lamar - Jonty explains why it's time for us to stop making sense, get tongue tied and embrace the life-changing power of inarticulacy.

Foreword

A lifelong stutterer dismantles the cult of fluency and champions the creative powers of inarticulacy

Product details

• Authors: Jonty Claypole
• Publisher: Profile Books
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 03.02.2022
• EAN: 9781788161725
• ISBN: 978-1-78816-172-5
• No. of pages: 352
• Dimensions: 128 mm x 198 mm x 26 mm
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature > Letters, diaries; Non-fiction book > Psychology, esoterics, spirituality, anthroposophy > Applied psychology; popular science, SCIENCE / General, Psychology, Memoirs, HEALTH & FITNESS / Hearing & Speech, Popular medicine & health, History of Science, Psychology: the self, ego, identity, personality, Speech and language disorders and therapy, Speech & language disorders & therapy, Autobiography: science, technology and medicine