What drew you to writing?
I loved reading when I was growing up, I realize that so many of the middle grade and young adult books I read back then have shaped me as a person. I remember reading on my bed one day and thinking how amazing it must be to be the author of the book I was reading and how it must feel to touch people’s lives that way. I always wanted to write a book that did that for someone else and I wanted to write teen fiction since it had touched my heart at that age.
It’s interesting that, along with my preteen and teen audience, I have a lot of adult readers. They often reach out to tell me how my books are helping them deal with things that they went through at a young age and didn’t realize how much baggage they were holding onto from that time. It’s an honor to hear you’re part of someone’s healing process.
Which of the authors you have read has had the most effect or influence on your writing?
Scott Fitzgerald with the vulnerability he writes with and how he has such a way with dialogue. The Great Gatsby is a favorite. I’ll never understand why they assign it in middle school though. I didn’t appreciate it until later in life.
What is your writing ‘process’?
I write at night and in the early morning when there are no distracts. I do admin type-author work in the late afternoon and evening. I used to be able to write with music in the background, but now I need silence—I swear, I’d hear it if a squirrel sneezed outside.
Just for fun:
Name a book you have read more than once.
One of my favorites is The Great Gatsby. I also write middle grade and young adult books, so of that genre I love Judy Blume’s Just as Long as We’re Together, My Mother was Never a Kid by Francine Pascal, The Great Mom Swap by Betsy Haynes, and Goodbye, Glamour Girl by Erika Tamar. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve re-read those books.
Name your favorite comfort or reward food.
Bacon and Pepsi. I also love chocolate dipped frozen bananas.