RIP Ned Vizzini

Writer Ned Vizzini died this week of an apparent suicide. Says William Yardley of the NY Times:

Mr. Vizzini wrote openly about his struggles with depression and spoke about it with student groups. One of his most celebrated novels, “It’s Kind of a Funny Story,” published in 2006, is based on the five days he spent in the psychiatric ward of a Brooklyn hospital in 2004. That was the same year he published his well-received first novel, “Be More Chill,” about an insecure high school student who becomes more confident after ingesting a pill-sized supercomputer. The success of “Be More Chill” brought him a contract to write two more books, but his initial excitement faded as he began to struggle with the writing and fell into despair.

He was 32-years-old.