Let’s get some of the typical interview questions out of the way first. When did you first know that you wanted to be a writer?
Fourth grade. I clearly remember the moment my teacher, Mr. Avink, pulled me aside during class and told me that my book, Baby May’s Birthday, had won the Young Author’s Conference contest for our class. I was so excited, but I had to keep it a secret for a few days. Mr. Avink sent me down the hallway to get a drink of water from the fountain so I’d have a minute to regain whatever composure fourth graders have, and on that long walk to the fountain I decided I was going to be a writer. But I kept that a secret, too, until I boldly announced it to a blind date once when I was in college.
And that guy? Married me.
Can you tell us a little bit about your road to publishing?
During college, I wrote a few children’s picture books and sent them out to publishers. After many rejections, real life took over and I stopped writing for ten years while I worked, got married, had kids. When I started writing again, I started very small. Flash fiction and a few short stories. I had some success with getting these published – one won a prestigious award. That built my confidence, and finally in early 2006, I sat down to write my first of several novels.
When one of them (WAKE) was finished and polished and just “felt” right, I went whole hog on finding an agent. By the end of August of that year, I had an offer of representation. By October, my agent began submitting the book to editors, and in January we had multiple offers for WAKE and for a sequel to it (FADE, to be published in 2009). I went with Simon Pulse because of their years of experience in the edgy teen market.
Tell us a little bit about either your latest or upcoming release. If you could only tell your readers one thing about the story that had to convince us to buy the book, what would it be?
FADE is out and I’m working on GONE, which is the third and final book in the WAKE trilogy. Everyone should buy them because one day, when we run into one another on a subway, you can say truthfully, “Oh Em Gee! I have your book!”
What, or who, has been the greatest inspiration for your stories?
This is tough, because I write in different genres and there are different inspirations for each. But a recurring subtle theme in my work is one of social injustice. I admire so much the teens that don’t “have it made.” The teens that have to struggle, not just to get good grades, but maybe to find something to eat each day. I write about the outcasts. Kids with extreme situations to overcome – broken families, low-income, prejudice, racism, abuse, snotty cliques that team up against kids who have to buy underwear at Goodwill. Any teen that can make it through the high school years and go on to BE somebody under that kind of pressure is my greatest inspiration of all.
Let’s hear about your family, who I’m sure are thrilled to have a published author among them!
My family is the best! My husband Matt is my first reader for everything I write. He doesn’t go easy on me, either. He is incredibly valuable – and he does, like, all the housework. He’s a real champ. My kids are fantastic and amazing. I have a 14-year-old son and an 11-year-old daughter, and they are so patient when Mom’s “in the zone.” They learned how to cook at a young age, and on the days I’m on a writing tear and ignoring everything else, they know enough to make some mac & cheese or a frozen pizza. And they even eat carrots with it. My kids ROCK!
Though this whole “mom’s an author” thing is pretty embarrassing to them, actually. They do not want me to come to their schools to speak to the classrooms. *grin*
Now for some fun facts. What’s your greatest comfort food?
mmmmmmmmmbacon!
What are the first three things you do when you wake up in the morning?
Bathroom. Diet Coke. Email.
If I came to your house and looked in your closet/attic/basement, what’s the one thing that would surprise me the most?
mmmmmmmmmmbacon!Just kidding. Um...probably the lack of shoes in my closet. Yeah. All my friends have about a thousand pairs of shoes. I have maybe three pairs. Sandals and a pair of slippers. Of course, that’s probably because I live in the scorching freaking desert. I keep my three pairs of shoes on the floor of the closet, right next to the gun. You know. In case there’s a scorpion in one of them or something.
Everyone asks the question about “if you could be a tree, which tree would you be?” so I want to know: If you could be a color, which color would it be, and why?
I am sage. Mellow, calming, and a great addition to any Italian dish.
Who is your favorite cartoon character? Which cartoon character is most like you?
Besides the Genius bunny? I think it would be that penguin from Bugs Bunny – the on who cries ice cubes. Bugs is trying to get him to the South Pole and they cross the Panama Canal and then there the cannibals...you know that one?And the character most like me is definitely Marcie, Peppermint Patty’s sidekick in the Peanuts gang. Sir.
If you could beam yourself to anywhere in the world (“Beam me up, Scotty!”), during any time in history, where and when would it be—and why?
Right now, it would be the England countryside in 1938, in the house of a wonderful family who “adopted” Jewish children from Germany or Poland through the Kindertransport Program in order to save these children from the Holocaust.
I’ve been working on a YA historical novel about this topic, and I’d love to witness it first hand, even though it would be terribly difficult to watch the horrific events unfold over the next years.
So what’s your favorite type of music to listen to? Favorite musical artists? Do you listen to music while you’re writing?
I like male vocalists who play piano. Current stuff, not like Liberace or anything. Five for Fighting. Train. James Blunt. A bunch of others whose names I don’t remember. I also like Norah Jones. I don’t usually listen to anything when I write – it’s too distracting for me, but often I’ll hear a song and get inspired by the mood of it, and then write something later that matches the emotion of the music.
Do you have any favorite T.V. shows? Movies you watch over and over again? What was the last movie you saw at the theater?
I love Heroes, Friday Night Lights (WAKE is sort of a cross between those two, now that I think about it, though I wrote WAKE before either of the shows existed), and yes, I watch reality TV and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Survivor, The Amazing Race, and all the cooking shows like my current fav, Hell’s Kitchen. Don’t you just wish that every once in a while you could go around yelling and screaming at people like Gordon Ramsey does? It’s like watching a train wreck – I can’t look away!
Movies I love and could watch over and over again: Love, Actually; Shawshank Redemption; Pride and Prejudice; The Wedding Singer; To Kill a Mockingbird; French Kiss; Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure; Pretty Woman; Napoleon Dynamite.
The last movie I saw in the theater was Harry Potter 5. I have trouble sitting still for more than an hour so usually I stay home with the dog and rent the DVD later.
You have the chance to give one piece of advice to your teen readers. What would it be?
If you are an underdog, if you don’t fit in, if your life is different from everybody else’s, if you have junk and drama in your real life that threatens to take you down, please fight to get through it. One day at a time. Have a goal and inch your way toward it every day, and you’ll succeed. I wish you all the luck in the world, friends.
Oh, and also? Don’t dream and drive.
One last question. What stories can we look forward to from you in the future?
I’ve sold another paranormal YA to Simon Pulse, untitled. It’ll come out in spring 2011. I’m not prepared to say anything more about it yet, but it’ll be creepy and have some romance in it.
Again, thanks so much for joining us at TeensReadToo.com!
The pleasure is mine – thank you for having me!
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