Author and mental health worker Seth Voorhees discusses how years in adolescent residential settings shaped his writing—from processing burnout and trauma into horror-infused stories to exploring dystopian societies that echo real emotional and ethical struggles. Titles like Immune, Midglow, Question 17, The Interim, and the in-progress The Cottonwood Prestige incorporate personal elements of substance reflection, spirituality, morality, and the search for connection amid hardship.

Topics include childhood books that taught friendship and belonging, bibliotherapy in clinical settings, the gap between knowing self-care and practicing it, validation through silence, men's mental health, first responder burdens, and cultural threads from South Dakota. The conversation underscores how stories let us  ...