1. What inspired you to write Get Well Soon?

            GWS is loosely based on my hospitalization for depression in high school.  There were so many strange but true things that happened; I always thought it would make a great book.  I began writing versions of GWS right during high school.  I think I needed fifteen years away from the hospital to finally get the story out.  When I started the novel version of GWS (see the Zines link for the zine version), the story was about ninety percent non-fiction.  In its final form, GWS is about equal parts fiction and non-fiction.

 2. So are you Anna?

             Sort of.  She’s me on a really funny day.  My self-esteem revelation took a lot longer to happen in real life.  Not all of the things that happened to Anna in the book happened to me.  She definitely looks like I did in high school, though.

 3. Were you a huge Ramones fan in high school?

            Sorry to say, no.  I liked them, but I was a depressed teenager during The Grunge Era (a good time to be depressed), so I was listening to lots of Soundgarden and Pearl Jam.  That seemed dated, so I picked another genre of music that I liked that has stood the test of time.

 4. Are all of the characters in GWS real?

            They are all fictionalized versions of real people.  ALL of them.  Yes, even the satanic weirdos.  I couldn’t make that up.  Justin was a combination of people.  My mom, dad, and sister were not like my family.  That would have upset my mom too much, and I would have felt guilty.

 5. Did you really have a loony bin romance?

  I'm not going to answer that yet. For now, let's say I really like the way I wrote the romance in the book.

Have more questions? Email me @ julie@juliehalpern.com.