Corrie Elliott is a Registered Psychotherapist in Ontario Canada. Corrie works with children in mental health settings in Sarnia ON and London ON. Corrie fell in love with creating stories about mental health during her time working with children. This passion for creating stories for her clients sparked the idea to publish a children’s book all about emotions. Corrie is passionate about both writing and mental health which lead to bringing this idea to life. Corrie looks forward to continuing to make mental health concepts fun and accessible to the public.
Q: How and when did your journey start as a writer?
I have always loved writing, growing up I would write stories and poetry for fun. I now work as a Registered Psychotherapist in Ontario Canada. I have been working with children’s mental health since 2019. While working with children, I began to create stories to support my client’s mental health goals. In the summer of 2023 I decided I wanted to create my children’s book talking about emotions to use in my own work and to share with others. Emotions can be hard to talk about, so I wanted to create a book that helped parents, educators and other therapists talk to the children in their lives about emotions in an enjoyable and educational way.
Q: When did you write your first story? Is it published or not?
I wrote Ellie’s emotional adventure during the summer of 2023. The book was self published in late December 2023. I am currently working on Ellie’s Emotional Adventure with fear, which I am hoping will be published before the end of 2024.
Q: Tell us something more about your books?
My goal in creating this book was to create a mental health resource that made learning enjoyable for kids. Ellie’s Emotional Adventure is an educational and mental health resource to support children’s emotional awareness and literacy. I combined my love for mental health and writing to create this book. This book is a resource to support children in learning about and understanding their own emotions. Ellie’s emotional adventure encourages children to talk about and share their emotions.
Q: How did these stories and characters come to your mind?
When I had the idea of writing children’s books, I thought it would be really fun to name the characters after my friends. One of my closest friends is named Elena, and I often call her Elle for short. Through Elena’s nickname, I decided my first character’s name would be Ellie. My goal for Ellie was to travel across time and situations helping kids learn about and understand different emotions along the way. When I started writing the pages of this book, the story flowed out as if it had always been stored in my head. As I continued to write, I asked myself “what else about emotions do I teach kids as a therapist?”. Before I knew it, I had a first draft of the story inspired by my work as a therapist and by a close friend.
Q: Do you want to leave any message for your readers?
I want to thank my readers for engaging with my stories. Mental health and writing are very close to my heart and it is such an honour to share my stories with others. The support from readers is how this dream stays real and ongoing. I also want to thank my readers for valuing children’s emotional development. Without safe adults helping and supporting children to learn about and understand their emotions, children do not learn these skills. Thank you so much for finding and sharing these resources with the littles in your life.
