And then he left, and came back, and our lives fell apart, like a well-loved book that you’d read and read again, until one night you picked it up to read yourself to sleep and the binding collapsed, sending dozens of pages spiraling toward the floor.

I grew up with a feminist mom and the understanding that, as someone coming from a position of (relative) privilege, it was my job to speak up when things weren't fair.

There's a part of me with every book that thinks, What would it have meant for me tohave had this book when I was a kid? I decided to create a book for girls like me. The Littlest Bigfoot is about bullying and body image and girls who don't fit in. It's like training wheels for my adult books - like Sex and the City, but with 12-year-olds.

Cram your head with characters and stories. Abuse your library privileges. Never stop looking at the world, and never stop reading to find out what sense other people have made of it. If people give you a hard time and tell you to get your nose out of a book, tell them you're working. Tell them it's research. Tell them to pipe down and leave you alone.

Hefty? I'd railed to Peter, waving the clipping for emphasis. Hefty? For the record 'Hefty' is a trash bag. I'm festively plump.

If you put a pink cover on something, critics make a certain set of assumptions and may not even read the book. But my readers are happy with it.

The difference between people who believe they have books inside of them and those who actually write books is sheer cussed persistence - the ability to make yourself work at your craft, every day - the belief, even in the face of obstacles, that you've got something worth saying.