Karen Watson asked Michael F. Stewart:

You manage to get to the heart of your characters and I feel as if I know them. What makes you choose the themes you do: heart transplant and transplant donors, adolescent mental health, etc.?

Michael F. Stewart Thanks for the question, Karen! And thanks also for the kind words. The themes and context of my books generally come from my life. My brother received a heart transplant; I wanted to write a thank you. My teens were asking about how to decide what to do with their lives; I wrote them Ray Vs the Meaning of Life. Our family has been impacted by mental illness, I wrote Counting Wolves. This continues now; my teens are individuating from their parents, it's a messy process, and so I'm writing my next book to match. :) Get to the heart, by writing from the heart? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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