I have like two dreams a week that I have to write a paper that I'm late with or that I've gone back to high school and have to do that in addition to my current job.

The best books come from someplace deep inside.... Become emotionally involved. If you don't care about your characters, your readers won't either.

Why are we acting as if we're angry. Are we angry?

[I]t's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.

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

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!

I don't really know exactly how it happened but I don't like the idea that I would ever have said I'm going to write about racism or puberty or bullying.