Ideas come from everywhere - they come from what you see and hear and imagine.

I don't necessarily want to talk about a book that I read. Even when I love it.

I love to talk with children. I try to visit schools but it's hard for me to travel when I'm trying to write. Some authors are able to do both.

[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.

I know where "Blubber" came from. It came from stories that my daughter told me when she came home from fifth grade. There was a kid in the class who was being bullied. We didn't even call it bullying then, that's what's so weird. Victimization in the classroom. The word bully was so out, was so not in use for all those years and now it's back big time.

I've heard that some authors do dream their books and I would love that if it happened to me, but so far it hasn't. Sometimes I'll get a good idea during the night and if I don't write it down, I won't remember it the next morning.

I wasn't interested in the kinds of books that I thought I should be reading.