What Inspired Me to Write “Manimal Crackers”

Recently, I just came out with a book called “Manimal Crackers.” It’s about a young girl who, like me, is obsessed with a show called Manimal. Said show is as the title suggests, about a seemingly regular professor who has the power to transform into a wild beast. And of course, she’s lucky enough to meet the lead actor himself, albeit as a ghost, and even get to work on a film adaptation! How cool is that?

Now, this idea didn’t come up out of thin air. You see, ever since I was little I’ve been playing with a bunch of ideas, some more sensical than others. I even wrote a story about a boy getting magic powers and transforming into a panther! Yeah, you can see where my wild and crazy imagination can take me.

As outrageous as the story may seem, it was initially a lot crazier. I had envisioned a South Park-style story crossing over with a game I liked from my childhood, complete with a football player sawing my sofa in half. (It’s a long story.) Suffice to say, my dad immediately nixed the idea, as he didn’t want to get in trouble with entertainment lawyers, let alone my cousin who just so happens to be one. Or, for that matter, the people who write the Madea movies.

Now, focusing on the main story wasn’t always easy, but it was possible. Seeing Simon as a father-figure helped, given that he already reminded me of my own father, to the point that I was disappointed that he never became a fan of my father’s work or even played him in a biopic. (Sorry, Dad, but he was a better fit to play you than Leonardo DiCaprio.) In fact, this probably motivated me to work on the story more, as writers often use stories as an outlet for their own desires. Just ask all those fanfic writers!

Another aspect from the story that I’m fascinated by is the duality between man and animal. One thing the story examines is how my disability makes it easy for me to act impulsively, like an animal (at one point, for instance, my self-insert drinks from a cup she finds on the street) and how I need a good mentor to help me out. Even today, I struggle a lot with keeping on the straight and narrow, and often need “guidance” as my mother points out, to keep me from doing erratic things.

Admittedly, getting a publisher for the story was difficult. My dad had offered getting a professor, who admired my work, to revise it at first, but I was (frankly) bogged down by life and barely got around to working on it! Eventually, however, after publisher-shopping for nearly two years, I finally got work with a college friend Morissa Schwartz, who runs a company called GenZ- they had originally rejected it, but after getting it revised, they took a look at it and were quite impressed with the new version of the story, and the rest they say, is history.

In short, writing Manimal Crackers has been quite a wild ride, but the success was not only worth the process, it was actually pretty enjoyable along the way. Rawwrr!!

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Jennifer Rose is an autistic author, novelist, and film critic. Her work explores identity, imagination, and what it means to think differently in a world that wasn't built with her in mind. In her novel Manimal Crackers, she draws on her own experience to tell a story about impulsivity, mentorship, and finding your footing. Her first book, It's Not a Perfect World, But I'll Take It (Skyhorse Publishing), is a memoir told in fifty life lessons about growing up autistic. She is now developing a literary magazine, Autonomy, for autistic writers and readers.