Speaking your truth is fucking hard.

And Emma is still learning how to share her truth as her debut novel Things My Therapist Doesn't Want Me to Say, Ten Years Post Transplant launches this fall.

Emma is a first-time author trying to navigate her twenties. In 2021, Emma celebrated living with her heart transplant for ten years and realized that the life she had been prescribed as a pediatric heart transplant recipient, didn't feel authentic to who she is now. She sought out this book-writing journey to not only celebrate living with her heart for ten years, but to provide the closure she needed from being a pediatric heart transplant patient, student, non-profit starter, athlete, and organ donation and transplantation advocate to a young adult, who is no longer most of those identites.

But the hard truth is, instead of the clarity and neat closure she was expecting and craving to receive at the end of this journey, in the midst of the celebration, she was also overcome by anxiety, depression, and fear. Emma quickly learned she was not ready to let go of finding a reason for all the chaos in her life and expecting that outcome only hindered her writing process.

Things My Therapist Doesn't Want Me to Say (#TMTDWMTS), is an intimate, unfiltered conversation between Emma and readers that reflects on Emma's past and the current uncertainty in her life that manifests from receiving a life-saving heart transplant at the age of 12. Emma explores feeling at home in her body while identifying as chronically ill, and engages readers by questioning the narrative of ‘anything is over-comeable if you just try hard enough.’

Buy Emma's Book