Saundra Mitchell is living a badassery life as an award winning author after dealing with sexual and physical assault, homelessness, her brother's suicide, and more

Saundra Mitchell is the author of nearly twenty books for tweens and teens. For twenty years, she was the head screenwriter and an executive producer with Dreaming Tree Films on their various teen filmmaking  programs. Saundra's latest book, "All the Things We Do in the Dark", is on the shortlist for the Indiana Authors Awards (winner to be announced Sept. 1). But before becoming a successful author, advocate, and mom, she overcome incredible grief, pain and anguish. Saundra grew up poor, was sexually assaulted by a stranger when she was 7, she was physically assaulted by both her first boyfriend and girlfriend (not at the same time), her younger brother died by suicide when she was 16, she was kicked out of the Army for being queer,  got pregnant and married young, AND spent a brief time homeless. But Saundra says she has a lot of spite. She's determined to keep going no matter how many times she gets kicked in the face. As she shared with us, "she still has MF-ers to prove wrong!".   She talked with us about some of her personal experiences and how they are portrayed in her new book, how she got started as an author, how therapy and writing is helping her deal with her own pain, and what the future holds. After listening to her interview, we think you'll agree that Saundra Mitchell is a real badass!