Gayle Foreman Remembered Four Lost Friends By Writing ‘If I Stay’
“Writing that book was an ecstatic experience, in part because, despite the sad premise, it was about all the love Mia had in her young life. But also because when I wrote it, I felt my friends in the room with me: visceral, real, alive. The grief was no longer a silent stowaway, weighting down my heart. It was just love, buoyant and uplifting. I needed to see them again. I made my needs known. They came back to me. They keep coming back.” (The New York Times)
