What Inspired Nicola Yoon to Write Safe Harbor With Husband David Yoon

'Little House on the Prairie' Stars Share the Major Way the Show Stayed True to the Books

For Nicola Yoon, her family is her safe space.

Which is why when it came to collaborating with her husband and fellow author David Yoon for Safe Harbor, their first fictional short story together, the couple drew inspiration from their time with someone very close to home.

"We have a 14-year-old,” Nicola told E! News in an exclusive interview, “and we've been showing her all our favorite old movies. And because David and I are both total romantic nerds, goobers—this is an era of Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club. We both sort of love big casts, and Breakfast Club was really great. That was inspirational for us."

And cast ensembles aside, Nicola and David found themselves not quite forgetting about the elements that made those films special.

“We were thinking about what kind of things kids go through, hard things,” she explained. “Because the thing about writing for young adult audiences is that they go through a lot. They go through the same thing adults do, but they go through it for the first time. And that's what makes it so great to write for them because you're sort of in the conversation, in the mix with them.”

In Safe Harbor, that conversation centers around Isabel, a young artist who crosses paths with other teens once she attends Safe Harbor’s therapy program to navigate her parents’ divorce.

“We just came up with this idea: it's like Breakfast Club, but the kids are going through divorce—and it was just really fun," Nicola shared. "We've been wanting to do something together for—we have been together for 27 years. We met in graduate school. We wanted to write together for one million years and could not figure out a way…and so we did.”

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During the couple’s writing process, Nicola—who was friends with David first before they began dating (classic rom-com come to life)—even found herself gaining that competitive spark once again.

“One of the things I really liked and started crushing on about him is he's a great writer, and I just remember being in class and being competitive in a way,” she explained. “When you're younger, you're kind of more competitive. So that was one of the first things I even fell in love with about him.”

Indeed, Nicola knew she met the boy she would marry—and would eventually write with.

“Just to feel that little bit of competitiveness again,” she shared of their short story, “it was just really great to see what he would come up with. I would do something, and then he would like take a pass over, and I was like, ‘Oh, we've made this third thing.’ It doesn't sound like me, and it doesn't sound like him. It sounds like this third person.”

As for what she hopes readers take away, Nicola wants to highlight the importance of what teenagers go through in life—a sentiment that she values within her own.

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“One of the things I remember so much from being a teenager is that moment you realize your parents are people,” she noted. “And not just there to serve you, but like actual people who are flawed. And it's the flawed part that's really defining because you have to accept that they are sometimes wrong about things and they sometimes don't know the answer and that you have to find your way, sort of on your own.”

It’s a lesson Nicola finds herself learning more about when it comes to raising her own teenager.

“I also think it's important that she understands that I will absolutely make mistakes," she shared, “and even big ones, and that it's fine. She will figure it out, and so [we] will muddle through it together because that's what you do. That's always the message, really, is that you're gonna screw it up, and your parents are gonna screw it up, but have some grace with each other because you're in it together.”

As with all Amazon Original Stories, The Edge of Everything is available in both eBook and audio formats and is free to Prime members and Kindle Unlimited subscribers.

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