Linda Vigen Phillips is passionate about poetry and realistic fiction. Her first YA novel in verse, Crazy (Eerdmans/2014), depicts a teenage girl coming to terms with her mother’s mental illness. In her second YA novel, Behind These Hands (Light Messages/July 2018), Linda shows how the life of a teenage piano prodigy turns upside down when her brothers are diagnosed with a rare childhood disease called Batten. Linda enjoys advocating for better mental health and rare disease awareness through writing workshops and speaking engagements. In her spare time, she finds every opportunity to visit her grandkids, ride her bike on a Charlotte greenway, or sit on her porch with her husband and watch the grass grow.