Goodreads asked Shaun David Hutchinson:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Shaun David Hutchinson The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley came to me in the strangest of ways. I was supposed to be working on a book about a concert and a road trip (be thankful I never finished it), so I wasn't looking to start a new project, but there I was watching TV—it's not important what show I was watching...okay, it was Private Practice...don't tell anyone—and there was a scene in a hospital where a man had lost his wife. One of the doctors realized he'd been sitting in the waiting room all day, and she asked him why. He told her that his wife had died earlier that day, and that if he left, it would be admitting she was really gone.

So I started thinking about this boy who lost someone, and how he'd decided to stay in the hospital where they'd died because it was the last place they'd been alive. At the same time, there was a story about a boy who'd gotten into a disagreement with some other boys about a video game. They doused him with rubbing alcohol and set him on fire.

I just started writing it, and Drew's voice came through so loud that I couldn't ignore it. I set aside everything I was working on to write the first draft of that book.

I drew upon my own experiences working in hospitals and with the fire department during my EMT training, and wove that together with my love of comic books. So many unlikely interests fed the creation of Five Stages.

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