By: Lauren Schulsohn, Staff Writer for UNSUGARCOATED Media

For our first episode in season 8 of the Grow with the Flow series, our award-winning host, Aalia Lanius, sat down with best selling author Wesley King to discuss his role in creating stories that shed light on mental health for younger readers. King has written 12 novels and counting from a diverse set of subjects, but his largest passion is writing books about mental health and neurodiversity, which mirrors his own challenges with anxiety disorders. As a result of King’s tenacity, he has won over 20 literary awards and his books have been translated for release worldwide. 

His consistent success and empathetic nature, which is clearly seen from his words in our podcast, caught the attention of the late Kobe Bryant who was looking for a writer to help craft a story for young athletes that are tackling psychological challenges on a daily basis. King speaks openly and with great respect about his process of writing with Kobe Bryant and how that led to the creation of The Wizenard Series, which was extremely successful as it was a #1 New York Times Bestseller. While King has collaborated with several authors on projects that tackle mental health, King also wrote the Edgar Award-winning novel, OCDaniel, which was a representation of his struggles with anxiety and OCD. 

“Initially, I was dealing with obsessive compulsive disorder, which manifested itself at 7, which is young, but it’s not uncommonly young. I have also dealt with anxiety disorder and panic attack syndrome. People that deal with anxiety and mental health are experts at hiding. It is important to be open for unbiased discussion,” says King.

Writing for King is therapeutic in a sense because he gets to express himself and his anxieties, but to King, writing is not for himself. Rather, King uses his writing to make a social impact and affect people who struggle, just like him. He will continue to write stories so that he can promote literacy for young people while truly opening up the conversation on mental health. 

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