Ann Jacobus

Ann Jacobus

San Francisco, California

My Story

Stories are how we make sense of the world and especially of difficult subjects. I'm a storyteller--a fiction author--for young adults, a former suicide crisis line counselor, and a mental health advocate. My latest novel is based partly on my experience taking care of my mother who died in 2011 from a virulent, small-cell carcinoma, and perhaps even more impactfully, spending the last week of my ...
Stories are how we make sense of the world and especially of difficult subjects. I'm a storyteller--a fiction author--for young adults, a former suicide crisis line counselor, and a mental health advocate. My latest novel is based partly on my experience taking care of my mother who died in 2011 from a virulent, small-cell carcinoma, and perhaps even more impactfully, spending the last week of my high school best friend's life with her and her family in 1993--in both cases with the transformative help of hospice. It's cliche, and writers try to avoid cliches, but these were life-changing experiences for me and I've attempted to share what it was like in this novel for young adults. Why young adults? As we all are learning, embracing mortality greatly enriches life, and the gentle normalization of death and dying can't start too early.