Stories have always been healing, so I’m funding bibliotherapists | Ann Cleeves | Books | The Guardian

My escape was into fiction - reading it and writing it. I was lucky because I was already a published writer and I had a reason to make stuff up. Of course, the guy who'd been stealing from the charity and was indirectly the cause of Tim's illness was murdered in a novel. I explored the issue of depression and came to understand my own response to Tim's behaviour. I read too, voraciously, anything that took me into a different world, away from the stress and anxiety of my everyday life. I wasn't earning very much from my books then, and because of his illness Tim's job was precarious. My local library, in Seaton Delaval, was a lifeline. It kept me going.