A screenwriter heard me read from my novel 'The Wishbones' when it was still in progress and mentioned me to some producers in Hollywood. They called, and I told them I had a novel in my drawer about a high school election that goes haywire. They asked to take a look, and my life changed pretty dramatically as a result.

Nothing beats novel writing because it's complete expression of you. You just control everything. Not even a movie director has that level of control.

I write about kids growing up, I write a lot about schools and parents, and all of my experiences with those things have been suburban experiences.

Once you'd broken through that invisible barrier that separates one person from another, you were connected forever, whether you liked it or not.

I no longer believe that just about everything is funny, if viewed from the proper angle.

I think I was always writing books that had very clear scenic structures. I do tend to write in scenes. I do tend to have a fair amount of dialogue. And I do tend to use stories that don't sprawl all over the place, that have a very sharp focus in terms of how they unfold in time.

I was also known as Frodo because I was an early adopter of 'The Lord of the Rings.