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.

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.

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.

You can't judge Islam by those people any more than you can judge Christians by abortion clinic bombers or white separatists. Love turn to hate at the fringes of any belief system.

Certainly working with teens keeps me up to date with language and with certain kinds of thinking. I often feel like I have to go back to that 17-year-old Chris Crutcher, and that forms the core voice. I can draw on teens from 1964 to 2001 to find a part of the voice I need.

But the truth doesn't need to be known, or believed, to be true.

You have to be careful not to use anything too colloquial or you date the book.