BETTY HYLAND writes often about mental illness because she had a son who was schizophrenic. Her young adult novel, The Girl with the Crazy Brother, w as developed by CBS-TV into an After-School special directed by Diane Keaton and starring Patricia Arquette.

A Thousand Cloudy Days is a creative-nonfiction account of a period during which a schizophrenic takes himself off medication, told from the point of view of the mother.

She is a member of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, Society of Children’s Book Writers, Writers of Chantilly, Sisters in Crime, and P.E.N. USA West.