Blink acquires 'professional confessional' from mental health nurse Elliot Sweeney

Blink Publishing, the commercial non-fiction imprint of Bonnier Books UK, has acquired We Don’t Use Words Like Crazy by mental health nurse Elliot Sweeney.  

Publishing director, Ciara Lloyd, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights (excluding Canada) from Gordon Wise at Curtis Brown in a five-publisher auction. 

We Don’t Use Words Like Crazy is a "professional confessional" from a community psychiatric nurse who works on the frontline of mental health services.  

It explores all aspects of mental health care, including hospital, youth care, dementia and community care. 

Sweeney said: "I’ve worked in mental health for two decades now and have accumulated a trove of stories. To be given the chance to open the door into this unusual vocation feels a privilege, and I’m immeasurably grateful to my editor Ciara for her boundless support and enthusiasm and my agent Gordon for his indefatigable belief. My hope with this book is to dispel a few myths, expose some realities and share the laughs and heartbreaks that come when working in frontline mental health care." 

Lloyd said: "I first read Elliot’s impassioned article in the Times, where he detailed a number of his frontline experiences as a psychiatric nurse and I was instantly taken by his idea for a memoir. The result is a beautifully insightful and important book. Elliot weaves in levity and humour into some very dark subject matter, and highlights some of our society’s most vulnerable people as well as the incredible people who help care for them. Elliot is such a talented writer; We Don’t Use Words Like Crazy is a call to arms that everyone should read and I am incredibly proud that we get to publish it here at Blink." 

Sweeney was born in London but spends his time between the capital and his adopted home in Lancashire. He is a community psychiatric nurse specialising in adolescent mental health and post-traumatic stress, but also writes fiction and non-fiction. 

We Don’t Use Words Like Crazy will be published in hardback, e-book and audio in April 2025 by Blink.