Ideas seem to come from everywhere - my life, everything I see, hear, and read, and most of all, from my imagination. I have a lot of imagination.

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.

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

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.

I didn't know anything about writers. It never occurred to me they were regular people and that I could grow up to become one, even though I loved to make up stories inside my head.

We weren't doing blow jobs when I was growing up.

My characters live inside my head for a long time before I actually start a book. They become so real to me, I talk about them at the dinner table as if they are real. Some people consider this weird. But my family understands.