Inside the envelope with the letter was a little Princess Leia action figure USB flash drive. For me to store my novel on, since he was right - I never back up my computer's hard drive. The sight of it - it's Princess Leia in her Hoth outfit, my favorite of her costumes (how had he remembered?) brought tears to my eyes.

It's what's known as an origin myth. What happened to me? That's no myth.

I used to draw and illustrate, but I don't do that anymore because I just like to write. I like to leave the illustrations to actual professional illustrators.

One of the biggest motivations for me with writing my books is to offer girls some escapism, especially girls who really need it, like I did.

Who knew an elf queen could be so vicious!

I wish I had taken Spanish instead of French in high school. I could eavesdrop on a lot more conversations on the subway if I knew Spanish.

My family, theyre story tellers. My mom is Irish, and my dad is Italian. In my family, we werent allowed to watch TV while we ate - we had to sit around the table and tell stories about our day.