Two BLOOM folks come to town

By Louise Kinross

I met this amazing woman Helen Hoens (left) on Wednesday night. A year ago she stepped down as New Jersey State Supreme Court Justice, saying she developed the qualities essential in a judge by raising her son Charlie (right), who has severe autism.

This afternoon she’s speaking on a parent panel at the Geneva Centre’s Autism 2014 conference in Toronto. You may remember this BLOOM piece she wrote for us.

I met up with Helen and Montreal author Joel Yanofsky at a pub at the conference hotel. Joel wrote Bad Animals, about raising his son Jonah with autism, and spoke on a dad panel at the conference yesterday. Take a look at this BLOOM video he did with us about writing his book.

Can you imagine how fascinating it was to chat over dinner with these two folks? Helen is a brilliant firecracker and Joel is funny and thoughtful and honest.