Guest Post: Author Dallas Woodburn (Before and After You and Me), Plus Giveaway ~ US Only!

For fans of Sarah Dessen and Jennifer Niven comes a breathtakingly original contemporary YA novel about love, grief, art, and the tiny choices that change our lives.

Emma blames herself when a freak accident at a pool party leaves Hunter, the town’s rising track star and her former boyfriend, paralyzed from the waist down. As she struggles with anxiety, loneliness and regret, she begins to obsessively paint portraits of legs and feet—Hunter’s legs and feet—and for the first time receives critical acclaim and notice for her artwork.

But what started as therapeutic for Emma ends up deepening her guilt. Does creating meaningful art require retreating inward toward self-expression, or striving outward toward recognition—or can it somehow be both?

Searching for one whole, authentic identity, Emma grapples with love, ambition, grief, homecoming, and—ultimately—redemption. 

“My problem,” I told my therapist, “is that I have spent my whole life honing my imagination.”

“Why is that a problem?” she asked, peering at me intently with kind eyes.

“Because I can imagine, so vividly, terrible things happening.”

It was four months after the birth of my first child, and every corner of the world seemed full of terrible danger. I agonized over decisions, imagining that I would make one tiny, seemingly meaningless choice—turning left instead of right out of a shopping center; dressing her in the onesie with the long sleeves instead of the sleeveless; going to the park instead of the library—that would somehow lead to utter tragedy. Any decision felt weighted with the possibility that I could regret it forever.

During my postpartum days, this anxious channeling of my imagination reached a fever pitch. Even in my sleep-deprived state, I recognized a shift and reached out for help from a therapist.

But the truth is, worry was my companion long before I became a mother.

My new novel Before & After You & Me centers around a teenage girl, Emma, who makes one innocent, impulsive decision at a party. She yells out, “Let’s go skinny-dipping!” and jumps into the pool. Others follow suit—including her ex-boyfriend, Hunter—and tragedy ensues. Emma blames herself for the accident, and we journey with her as she wrestles with her guilt, grief and regret.

While Before & After You & Me was just recently published, I began writing the first draft of the story twelve years ago, when I was in graduate school pursuing my MFA degree in Fiction Writing. Like Emma in the novel, who moves from California to Indiana to attend an exclusive arts-magnet boarding school, I was living thousands of miles away from my hometown, friends and family. I felt more alone than ever before. Emma became a vessel for my own feelings of loneliness, homesickness, and self-doubt.

Looking back, I can see the guilt and grief I was battling as I wrote the first draft. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was girding myself to leave an unhealthy relationship—much as Emma gradually comes to the decision to break up with Hunter. In the many subsequent years of revising, reshaping, and expanding, this novel took on additional layers of meaning thanks to the twists and turns of my own life. For example, Kevin—a character completely absent from the first draft—is loosely based on the man who became my husband. As my own world broadened and deepened, so too did the novel.

Back to that therapist’s office. She gently suggested that my imagination was not to blame, then said something that changed my life.

“I believe your imagination is actually your superpower. But you get to decide how to use it.”

My brow crinkled in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“What if instead of imagining terrible things happening… you imagine good things happening instead?”

It sounds so simple. But, for me, this tiny shift worked wonders. I began to imagine driving home from the grocery store, my precious baby buckled snugly into her carseat, and parking in our driveway safe and sound. I imagined my baby waking up from her nap rested and cheerful, calling for me and giggling when I entered her bedroom. I imagined her continuing to grow, healthy and strong, and me there beside her, caring for her and delighting in her day by day by day.

In Before & After You & Me, Emma learns that she is worthy of love and forgiveness—not just from others, but most of all from herself. Writing her story revealed a truth that I needed to learn myself: that life is not about being perfect or never having regrets. It is about doing the best we can to live bravely and fully; accepting the whims and fancies of fate; and trusting that we are enough, even (especially) in our messy imperfections.

I hope Emma gives readers permission to let go of emotional weight or reproach or self-criticism they have been carrying around, perhaps without even realizing it. As Emma finds her way back to freedom and hope, I hope the reader finishes the book feeling lighter, too.