I am for anything that makes teens visible in an honest way... in other words, anything that represents them the way they are, positively or negatively.

And I think if you're going to be with somebody, you owe it to them to show yourself.

Sometimes a book is better than it ever had a right to be because of the history the reader brings to the reading and because of the methods educators use to bring a particular story alive.

I don't think I'll ever lose the feeling that I had when I read 'To Kill a Mockingbird' - Harper Lee was going back into her childhood. I grew up in a real small town - Lee's was in the South, mine the Northwest - but small towns have a lot in common. There was such a revelation in knowing that a story could be told like that.

It seems to me if you don't know anything about child development you shouldn't intimate in your "reporting" that you do.

Being an outsider means not being heard, not having a voice. It means being treated as a second-class citizen, being diminished in the eyes of others. We have all felt this way at one time or another, but some feel it more consistently. Unfortunately, our schools often do not embrace the talents of many of their occupants.

Deadline' is the story of a young man forced to discover who he is, and what's important in life, during the short span of his senior year in high school.