When I'm writing a book, you can't think about your audience. You're going to be in big trouble if you think about it. You're got to write from deep inside.

First of all I can only focus on one creative project at a time. I wish I could focus on two, because I really only write.

I always had stories inside my head and one day I just decided to start writing them down. I didn't actually decide.

[When I was a kid] I was a surgeon, amputating legs and arms of my paper dolls. And I had a little board with little tacks that I would tack them down to do this.

The truth will make you odd.

"Summer Sisters" is probably my least autobiographical book. The whole idea started with rowing down the pond. And I heard an explosion. I don't like sudden loud noises. They scare me. And then all these people came running down the hill and jumped in the water in their finery and a bride and groom was with them, and that's where it all started.

I think people who write for kids, we have that ability to go back into our own lives.