Bradley Riches releases first book Autistically Me this week
bradley riches released his first book this week, bringing his autism advocacy into print with Autistically Me: How to understand and celebrate our autistic minds. The book is designed as a celebratory toolkit for unique minds, and it blends lived experience with practical advice. That puts his public platform to work for readers navigating autism at any stage.
Autistically Me and its toolkit
The book offers guidance for anyone navigating autism at any stage of their journey. Riches described it as a celebratory toolkit for unique minds, which keeps the focus on practical use rather than memoir alone. In an industry where representation often stops at casting, he is using a first book to reach readers directly.
Lewis Barton made his first appearance in Emmerdale last year, and the character was described as the soap’s first neurodivergent character. Riches plays Lewis Barton, so the book arrives with a built-in link between screen representation and the way he speaks about neurodivergent voices off screen.
Vicky Myers on social media
Vicky Myers added public support by sharing a photo of Riches holding the book on social media. She wrote, “You're amazing @brad_riches #autisticallyme.” That kind of endorsement is small on its face, but it helps push the release beyond a single-post announcement and into the wider soap community.
Riches had already explained how narrowly this role nearly slipped away. “I came to Leeds for a meeting for a different character: Dylan, who is in April’s storyline. But then the schedule didn’t work, and I thought I’d missed the opportunity,” he said. After an audition and chemistry test with Mike Parr, he secured Lewis instead.
Leeds, Dylan and Lewis
“I felt like it was meant to be. The personality of the character fits me so much better,” Riches said of landing Lewis Barton. The timing matters because it shows the actor moving from near-miss to a role that aligned more closely with him, then turning that visibility into a book aimed at the same audience.
Riches was contacted back in December two years ago, after the earlier audition, and that sequence gives the release a useful frame: he is not just publishing as a TV face, but as someone whose public work has already been tied to neurodivergent representation. Autistically Me now extends that work into a format readers can use on their own terms.
