Annike asked Anne Eliot:

What are the most important things to consider when writing for a young adult audience? Also how do you effectively write about mental health in your book Almost? I absolutely love your stories!

Anne Eliot Annike, please excuse the whole year it's taken to respond to you. I've been offline to work on family issues. Funny you should ask this exact question. My son, has had a bad year of being very depressed. We've had to move houses, and move towns and move him to a new school. We are only just getting to feel like we are living in a new 'normal'. Thanks for the kind words about Almost. It has been very scary to write about mental health issues, because these issues (and now we know it first hand) come with a ton of pain. For the person suffering from the issue, and from the families who support the person who is suffering. Of course the families who love this person would gladly trade places if they thought they could help, right? This is why each of the books took so long to write. It's very scary to represent someone else's pain. But at the end of the day, if you are writing a book like this, you need to just focus on the character that you are writing. Mental health is so individualized per person. Different for every single person. The issue, for example of PTSD is so huge--that you can get overwhelmed and freak out and believe me, I did just that. Then, I would just dial it back down to my character. That said, I also had these amazing guys who are military, Special Forces Army--and these macho dudes sat down with me and helped me go through each scene of the PTSD and make sure it rang true for them. The book Runaway Girl is a nod and a thank-you to those guys (same guys who helped me make the character of Robin's father). For the depression in Unmaking Hunter Kennedy, same thing--I made it true to Hunter, but I asked every friend I knew who had depression, one amazing woman was a depressed teen, she gave her her teen journals to read...my very good friend is on antidepressants and she reviewed each chapter about Hunter's mom who is also on antidepressants-because those save lives and I wanted to make sure all aspects were represented. Well, I hope you aren't mad you had to wait so long for me. I'm trying to be back now on Goodreads and write faster this year. Wishing you the best and a big hug from me. Maybe by now you wrote your own book? If so you better show me? xo xo A

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