It's so amazing. I mean talk about sexuality changing.

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!

If no one speaks out for [young readers], if they don’t speak out for themselves, all they’ll get for required reading will be the most bland books available. Instead of finding the information they need at the library, instead of finding novels that illuminate life, they will find only those materials to which nobody could possibly object... In this age of censorship I mourn the loss of books that will never be written, I mourn the voices that will be silenced — writers’ voices, teachers’ voices, students’ voices — and all because of fear.

Sometimes I can't read my own handwriting. That's a problem!

My husband says I have too much imagination, but I don't think a writer can have too much imagination!

[With "Summer Sisters" the publisher] sent me on a big book tour. And it was the most wonderful professional experience of my life. I mean it was like Kleenex on every table wherever I was, friends patting friends on the back and they'd cry and I'd cry.

I love movies, and theater, and kayaking, reading, biking, walking - oh, and dancing. I love to dance!