Reggie asked Heather Demetrios:

In your novel "I'll Meet You There," you tackle many important topics including poverty, PTSD, war/soldier stigma, alcoholism, and so mich more. As an author, how to you navigate the narrative with so many elements without making the story feel long or dense with topics? Additionally, how do you ensure your story is sincere and tasteful. All of these topics are handled so tactfully and I appreciate that so much.

Heather Demetrios What an awesome question! I think the big thing is not thinking about the book as an "issue" book and letting that take over. For me, it's all about finding the authentic heart of my characters and really just seeing what they're dealing with. A lot of writing is like the acting advice I was given in college: "acting is reacting." So as things happen, the characters react. And those reactions, because of their past and their current situation, often results in the things that came up in IMYT, like alcoholism and PTSD. I also felt like this book in particular was about writing what I knew. I grew up broke--not to Sky's extent--and so I had a sense of what that felt like and I did want to show that side of life. Not very many books get into what it's like to be poor, but not like, on the street poor. Instead of thinking about all of this stuff as topics, I began to think about them instead as the reality of my character's lives. There was, of course, a lot of research involved in terms of Josh and PTSD, so a big part of that was actually talking to Marines and Soldiers who were vets about their combat tours and what it was like to come home. To a lot of people, they're just statistics. I wanted people to understand what's going on with these people (and STILL going on). I want them to care, regardless of how they feel politically about the war. So that was the big "issue" for me, and I had to be careful not to get preachy. I just had to live in those dark places with Josh until I figured out how to get them on the page in an authentic and respectful way.

flag