I wanted to write honest books for kids because I didn't have those when I was a kid.

I'm lucky that so many children visit my website. At least I get to talk with them that way.

Sometimes I'll say, "I wrote that book," and the person will look at you as if you're really strange. One time that happened to my daughter on a plane. She was sitting next to a girl who was reading one of my books and my daughter said, "My mother wrote that book." And the girl started to quiz my daughter, asking her all sorts of questions, like what are the names of Judy's children and where did she grow up. My daughter thought it was so funny.

I'm really quite bad at coming up with plot ideas. I like to create characters and just see what will happen to them when I let them loose!

"Margaret" was just my truth. It was what I knew to be true about sixth grade.

Each of us must confront our own fears, must come face to face with them. How we handle our fears will determine where we go with the rest of our lives. To experience adventure or to be limited by the fear of it.

I was sick all the time, one exotic illness after another, which lasted throughout my twenties. My worst decade. But from the day the first book was accepted, I never got sick again. Writing changed my life.