Keith Huddleston

Keith Huddleston has lived at Camphill Village Kimberton Hills since 2010.  When asked why he chose CVKH to call home Keith shared, “I so enjoy the open grounds and rolling hills.  It’s gorgeous here!”  Keith enjoys going for long walks in the community, taking in the landscape and beautiful nature. Naturally, he also works in the Herb Garden and Orchard, since he likes being outdoors so much. 

A recent selfie of Keith.

“So I went to Copake and I came here as well. I love Kimberton Hills. Here, you'll go and have a meal at Sycamore, and then you'll maybe go work on the dairy farm. That's the beautiful part. Those long walks are what make it beautiful, and it's open grounds.”

Keith shared some about his life before coming to Camphill. “I have autism. When I was in school, I didn't socialize at all. I would go to class, take the courses, go have a meal, then go to the library, and then go home. So I would not socialize with anyone. I just didn't have social skills.

And, you know, at the time, I don't know, I was young and I was thinking to myself, well, look, you're doing well in economics. Just keep going here. Don't worry about this other stuff. That other stuff will take care of itself. That's what I kind of hoped or assumed. For autistic people, some parts of their life they can handle and then other parts they can't. When I was young, I had ability in two areas. I was good at math, I was excellent at math. I could just solve things very quickly. The other thing is I had a good ability for writing and verbal skills.”

After high school, Keith attended McGill University in Montreal, where he studied for four years and earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics. After McGill he attended the University of Florida and earned a Master's Degree in Agricultural Economics.

Keith shared, “During all of those years of school, all I was doing was writing, writing, writing. You take about four or five courses a semester and for every course, you're writing a paper. I was writing constantly and I started to get good at it and started to develop a confidence in writing. I would also get comments from professors who were saying, even beyond that you knew the subject matter, your writing is terrific! You know, you're a real good writer.

There was an opportunity when I was an undergraduate. The internet had just come out and there was a website in England who was looking for people to submit fantasy or science fiction short stories. I had some time and I dabbled because I had already been thinking about writing fantasy.

When I was a kid I read fantasy and science fiction. In those days, we didn't have the internet and TV was really limited. Because of that, I grew up reading. That's what we did in our family. We just read voraciously. My heroes were Tolkien, the author of Lord of the Rings. There was an English fantasy writer called Michael Moorcock who I also loved. He was brilliant. There were a bunch of fantasy writers that I liked, and it had always been kind of my dream to write a fantasy novel at some point.”

Keith continued, “So I wrote this science fiction short story as an undergraduate, and I submitted it to the website, and they accepted it. And they paid me 200 pounds, which is about $220. I was thrilled, and showed it to my dad. He thought it was fantastic!

Then later, for my master's degree, my master's thesis was published in an academic journal. It was the Soil and Crop Science Society of Florida for 1996. My thesis was a study on agricultural land values in Florida, econometric study. It looked at factors that affected agricultural land values and stuff like that. It's very… It's all minutia at the graduate level, but it did get published.

So I emerged with a master's degree when I was about 26 or 27, and I had a lot of confidence in my writing. I thought, I can write, and I can get published. There was an occasion after that where I was doing all this work that was very left-brained. It was very mathematic and I was kind of bored, and I wanted to do some right-brained creative stuff. So I decided just to go for it and write that dream fantasy novel. I said to myself, Okay, I'm writing a sword and sorcery book!”

It took Keith about two years to write the book and at the end he showed it to his dad. Keith explained, “I showed it to my dad, and my dad is a three-time published author. He's published books in history and political science. His first book won him awards even. My dad was a very bright, just a brilliant man in some ways. He was an economist. I don't know how his brain works, but he's a brilliant, brilliant man.”

Keith holding his book, Gathering of the Clouds.

Keith continued, “He looked through my book, and he said, ‘Yeah, this is good. I like this.’ So then I sent it out to as many fantasy publishers as I could. When you send books out, your chances of getting a book published are very tiny. It's like, when you’re an undergrad and you applied to Harvard and Yale and all the great schools. Your chance of getting in is tiny. It’s similar. I knew the chances were small, so I literally put it out to every fantasy publisher, both in the USA and in Canada.

It was about 30 places and I was hoping that one of them would show interest. And that's exactly what happened. One of them sent me a personalized letter stating that they’d read my book, and they liked it. The letter continued to explain, that they have a two-stage consideration process at their company, and we'd like to congratulate you because your book has made it to the second stage.

They wrote again a couple months later and said no to publishing it. Keith then showed the letter to his dad and they decided to self-publish it through the company, Ex Libris. Keith shared, “They put out this very handsome jacket. I love the jacket and the appearance and everything. It's very beautiful. I'm very proud of it.

Keith’s book.

Ultimately, I didn't sell many copies. I still have hopes for it in the future though. I'm still going to push and try to approach people with the idea that I'm an autistic person who's done this. There's families out there with autistic children and they want to believe that there's some hope and that their kid can do something. So this is maybe proof that, here's a person who has a disability and look what he did.”

If you’re interested in purchasing a copy of Keith’s book, it can be found online by searching for Keith Huddleston, Gathering of the Clouds. Both Barnes & Noble, or Xlibris, the publishing company have copies available, as well as many other book sellers.