The one reader I'm trying to please as I write is me, and I'm pretty difficult to please.

I looked at my hand resting on the shelf of the prop cabinet, thinking of the scars that were there whether anyone could see them or not.

Life needed a fast forward button. Because there were days you just don't want to live through, not again, but they kept coming around and you were powerless to stop time or speed it up or do anything to keep from having to face it.

. . .There are certain people who come into your life, and leave a mark. . . Their place in your heart is tender; a bruise of longing, a pulse of unfinished business. Just hearing their names pushes and pulls at you in a hundred ways, and when you try to define those hundred ways, describe them even to yourself, words are useless.

I didn't 'decide' to write YA, per se. But every time I thought of a story, it featured characters 15, 16, 17.

There were about ten years of trying, failing, trying again, suffering rejection, etc. My first published book, 'Story of a Girl', was the fourth book I wrote.

My books have been translated into various languages and sold in other countries, but I never have any contact with the foreign publishers and am so disconnected from that process that it seems almost imaginary. With 'How to Save a Life', I worked closely with Usborne editors and have been involved in the publicity.