Contact: Ron Miles Phone: (407) 973-7240 Email: [email protected] Sample Interview with author and blogger Ron Miles, author of 3500: An Autistic Boy’s Ten-Year Romance with Snow White Ron Miles, author of the new book 3500: An Autistic Boy’s Ten-Year Romance with Snow White, talks with Good Morning Sacramento hosts Cody Stark and Lori Wallace about his son’s experience with Disney and Snow White. Cody Stark: Joining us now on FaceTime is Ron Miles. Ron, how are you doing sir? Ron Miles: I am well, how are you? CS: We talked to you a few months ago. I loved the story about Ben and Snow White's scary ride, and I said to you "You need to write a book about this" and then you wrote a book about this. So I'm taking all the credit for the book! No, I'm just kidding. So tell the folks at home the story again about Ben's love of this ride. RM: Well, Ben was always fascinated by Disney, watch a lot of Disney videos when he was young, and back in 2002 we took him to Disney World for the very first time. We flew from Seattle to Orlando, and the very first day we were in the park the very first ride he ever went on was Snow White's Scary Adventures. It was like turning on a light switch. Prior to that he had no verbal ... no spoken language, and tended not to focus on things for any great period of time. When he was on that ride he just came alive. He was focused and present, and completely engaged. So over the course of that visit we saw this amazing transformation in him. After we went back home we started talking about it, and wondering if maybe we should move to Florida. We brought him back on a second trip and saw the same kind of response. So in August of 2003 we actually uprooted two families to move from Seattle to Orlando and to use Walt Disney World as kind of a giant therapy session to help Ben grow. It's just been an amazing experience. Ultimately he rode Snow White's Scary Adventures 3,500 times before it closed permanently last May. I sat down and wrote a book about the entire experience, that book just came out a couple of weeks ago, and I'm very pleased with how it turned out. Lori Wallace: What has been the response from other parents who are dealing with a similar experience, maybe having an autistic kid? What has been their response after reading your book? RM: It's been very flattering. I've had a lot of really positive responses. I've talked to several other families. There was actually another family there that night, on the final night, who had an autistic child that was a couple of years younger than Ben. They had kind of a similar experience, maybe not as extreme and obsessive as Ben's. But it's been really gratifying to talk to other people and hear how much they've enjoyed the story. CS: Now the ride, you said they took it out and they put something in its place. There had to be a moment of panic when you guys heard about that because it was coming to an end. How did you deal with that, talking to Ben about the ride was going to be ending? RM: It was terrifying. The reason they closed it was because of a big Fantasyland expansion, which has just opened in the last few months and it's amazing. But as part of that expansion they decided to convert that space into a Princess Meet and Greet. When we heard that news, there was no announced closing date so we had no idea how long it would be. We started trying to explain it to Ben but we had no way of telling if he understood. We had about a year's warning before it finally closed. We actually spent some time, we sat down with Ben's doctor, his autism specialist, to try and decide how to handle it. She really recommended to us that we make kind of a big ceremonial deal out of it, let him go and say goodbye to the ride and make it clear that this was the last time. And so that final night that the ride was in operation, it was just this amazing night. There were so many incredible people there, but we were kind of in our own little bubble for those hours while Ben was just going on the ride over and over again. It was just a really neat farewell to the ride, and the Disney cast members went way above and beyond. CS: Well Ron, I'm gonna pause you right there because I want everybody to get the book, and I want them to read the book and find out what happened at the very end. Tell the folks where they can find your book. RM: You can order the book directly through my website, it's Shmoolok.com, or you can go to Amazon.com. It's available in print and as a Kindle. If you go to Amazon and just search for "3500 autistic" it will come right up. LW: Thank you for joining us! CS: It's a wonderful story; it really is a beautiful story. RM: Thank you! CS: Thanks Ron! For more information on “3500” visit the website at http://shmoolok.com/Book. ### About the Author Ron Miles is the proud father of an autistic son, a software architect, and a musician. Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, Ron moved (along with his exwife, son, and then-fiancée) to Central Florida in the summer of 2003 in order to use Walt Disney World as a giant therapy session for his son. He blogs about his son and other autism-related issues at www.shmoolok.com. He also runs a website dedicated to post-apocalyptic fiction at www.JamesAxler.com, as well at least a dozen other websites. In his day job he works from a home office and writes the software that drives the Conferences & Events department of a luxury travel company. He dreams of the day when he will finally be able to have a real conversation with his son, if only to find out what his son has really been thinking about all these years. Book Facts 3500: An Autistic Boy’s Ten-Year Romance with Snow White Print: ISBN 1-482-09330-8, $12.95, 246 pages, 6” x 9” trade paperback Kindle: ASIN B00BFTDHV4 $2.99 Publ. Date: February, 2013 Media kit: http://shmoolok.com/Media