Katie Heidrich: Hi, my name is Katie Van Heidrich and I am the author of The In-Between.

This story is so very personal to me, obviously it being a memoir in verse. It's about an experience I had when I was in the seventh grade when my family and I were in between homes and we found ourselves in an extended stay hotel, which if you can imagine for a 13-year-old girl living with her 12-year-old brother and her 11-year-old sister was completely chaotic, was totally beyond what I wanted to be true for my life at that time, as I'm trying to figure out how to go in between my parents and their separation, in between friends at school, relationships, navigating school, and what it means to be a young adult who really can't control anything just yet.

And this experience continued to come up for me throughout my life, something that I would reflect upon, that I would write about, but hadn't figured out exactly what I wanted to do with the story just yet. But I knew that I needed to put it down somewhere, that I needed to tell this story because it was something that stayed with me, something that really formed who I was and was something that I also needed some more time to process.

I am a big fan of just jotting down my thoughts, however they come to me, whenever they come to me on a yellow pad. I just have stacks and stacks of papers all over the place of where I'd be taking notes, whether I'd be driving or at work or at home trying to take care of my kids. Sometimes I would do voice recordings on my phone when I was driving. I really just like the lyrical aspect of writing in verse. It really feels personal that you're in somebody's mind, that you're in someone's heart and soul. And I thought that that was the best way for me to deliver this story.

It wasn't always linear how I was telling it. The pieces that would stand out to me were sometimes hard to make sense of or put into a logical form or fashion, and so just being able to get them out however they wanted to get out at the time. Again, the voice recording, jotting things down, and then ultimately putting them together to form this book, that was the majority of my process, and trying to make something that was beautiful, that was accessible, but then also represented just how fluid and at times ambiguous this experience was for me.

There are so many vulnerable aspects of writing a memoir, of going back in time and trying to put down on paper what you went through, what others were responsible for, what you were responsible for yourself, while also trying to respect other people's truth and trying to keep in mind that not all of this story... Well, my story is my story to tell absolutely. But other people's stories are intertwined in this as well. I want it to be respectful and make sure that I wasn't necessarily broadcasting or overly sharing something that might have been a really personal or vulnerable aspect of someone else's experience, especially since I'm talking about my family. People that despite our issues or disagreements or the fraught ways that we've interacted with each other over time, have gone through their own traumas, have gone through their own challenges, and not wanting to overstep any boundaries or tell anybody else's story at the end of the day.

I hope that wherever you are right now and whatever you're going through, that you still find ways to find joy, that you still find ways to take control of your life in whatever way that you're able to. And just knowing that you got to keep going, you got to keep persevering because in time everything will be what it needs to be. Everything will get better and you will make it past the in between time, whatever that means or looks like for you.

This is a piece from my book, The In-Between. It's called How Is Your Break? I write:

The rest of the day is a blur as the world still spins. There are still locker combinations to spin and homework to be done. There's still the God awful beeping of the PACER test and tortured science lessons about dominant and recessive traits. There are still rigid rules to follow about when to speak and when and how to raise your hand to go to the bathroom. And I tell myself over and over again that we are not special. That your mom being in between jobs again, is not special. That staying in a hotel is not special. That if the world stops every time something bad happened to anyone, the world would never, ever move. But God, how I wish it slowed down sometimes if I fall down and off and into outer space.

And God, how I wish friends would stop asking how my winter break was. After all, I don't think people really cared to know how you're really feeling when they fix their mouth to ask you how you're doing. They can't possibly mean it, right? After all, it's just a gesture, right? It's just a greeting meant to be quick and casual and a segue to more interesting conversations, more enjoyable conversations, conversations that don't cause immediate discomfort, that don't spark immediate awkward silences and pathetic offerings of, "I'm so sorry," because what do they even have to be sorry for?

So instead of blurting out a total disaster, and we lost our dog, and the guts of Josh's fish are probably still festering in the apartment carpet downstairs right now, right as we speak. And to make matters worse, we moved into an extended stay and I have no earthly idea how long we'll be there. And I'm sharing a bed with my 11-year-old sister and my mom who won't stop crying, and I can't even hear myself think, and I wish that I could fly away. I pause, take a deep breath and say, "It was great, Alana. How was yours?"