FOURTEEN DAYS

Born in Dublin in 1969, Emma Donoghue is a writer of contemporary and historical fiction whose novels include the international bestseller "Room" (her screen adaptation was nominated for four Oscars), "Frog Music", "Slammerkin," "The Sealed Letter," "Landing," "Life Mask," "Hood," and "Stirfry." Her story collections are "Astray", "The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits," "Kissing the Witch," and "Touchy Subjects." She also writes literary history, and plays for stage and radio. She lives in London, Ontario, with her partner and their two children. Diana Gabaldon is the internationally bestselling author of many historical novels including Cross Stitch, Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager, Drums of Autumn, The Fiery Cross and A Breath of Snow Ashes. She lives with her family in Scottsdale, Arizona. John Grisham is the author of more than fifty consecutive #1 bestsellers, which have been translated into nearly fifty languages. His recent books include The Boys From Biloxi, The Judge's List, Sooley, and his third Jake Brigance novel, A Time for Mercy, which is being developed by HBO as a limited series. Grisham is a two-time winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was honored with the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction. When he's not writing, Grisham serves on the board of directors of the Innocence Project and of Centurion Ministries, two national organizations dedicated to exonerating those who have been wrongfully convicted. Much of his fiction explores deep-seated problems in our criminal justice system. John lives on a farm in central Virginia. Why is Tim Jacobus R.L. Stine's favorite illustrator? Maybe because they've done so many scary books together. Tim did the cover paintings for more than 80 Goosebumps books, as well as the six amazing Amazon books. Recently, the two of them got together and asked the questions they've always wanted to ask each other... ~~~~ TIM (the illustrator) asks R.L. STINE (the author): TIM: When I illustrate, I can "see" the image in my head before I start to draw. Do you "hear" a story when you write? R.L.: I hear kids when I write. I try to hear the voice of the boy or girl who is telling the story. I visit schools a lot and talk with kids so I can keep up with what they are saying these days and what real kids sound like. Then I try to hear their voices tell the story as I write it. ~ TIM: You've written so many books I can't do the math, but I bet you've used millions of words. What's you favorite word? R.L.: Someone once got in an elevator with a very witty author named Noel Coward and said, "Say something funny." And Coward said, "Kangaroo." Kangaroo has been a favorite word of mine ever since I heard that story. But as a horror writer, I guess my favorite word is SCREAM! ~ TIM: Where is the strangest place you have come up with an idea for a story? R.L.: An empty movie theater. My wife and I went to see a scary movie in a big, old movie house-- and we were the only ones in the theater. It was kind of creepy. Then about halfway through the movie, I turned around and saw that the back row was filled with people sitting straight and still. Suddenly, I thought-- They are zombies! I'm trapped in a dark zombie theater! And that's where the idea for the book Zombie Town came from. ~ TIM: If you couldn't write-- and you possessed all skills-- what would you like to do for a living? R.L.: I drew comic strips from the time I was in 4th grade, and I always dreamed of being a cartoonist. You can imagine my shock when the other kids told me how bad my art was. They were right. I stunk! I got over my extreme disappointment by starting to write. But if I had the skill, I would love to do what you do, Tim. ********** R.L. STINE (the author)asks TIM (the illustrator): R.L.: If you couldn't be an artist what would you like to be? TIM: I would like to be a "Snowmaker" at one of the big ski resorts, out west, like Mammoth Mountain in California. You work at night when everyone goes home. Set up the snow guns, cover the slopes, and groom them with the Sno-Cat track machine. It's kinda like a snow tank! Then, you get to ski for free! I love that snow! ~ R.L.: When we were kids, my brother and I used to go to a horror movie every Saturday. We loved them all. The covers on our six Amazon books look like movie posters to me. Were you also influenced by horror movies? If so, which ones? TIM: I was a complete "chicken" as a kid. I couldn't sit through any horror movie. The first scary movie I saw was on TV. It isn't really a horror movie. It was the Hunchback of Notre Dame-- the black-and-white version with Charles Laughton. That movie freaked me out! The mutant, Quasimodo, was something that REALLY could exist. Black-and-white movies, black-and-white photosthey all seem more "real" than full color to me. ~ R.L.: You have painted so many great covers. I think your scariest Goosebumps cover was for The Barking Ghost. And the black cat on The 13th Warning is really creepy. Do you have a favorite cover? Is it a scary one or a funny one? TIM: It's hard to pick a favorite. But you gotta love the blue bathroom blobs in Monster Blood IV. That one is a little creepy and WAY funny. For just outright scary, I love the ticket taker in Zombie Town! ~ R.L.: What was the weirdest thing someone ever asked you to draw? TIM: Oh, I have drawn a lot of weird stuff. One time, I had to paint a pimple! You know... acne! It was a medical illustration. Gross. When I first started illustrating, I painted pictures of food. My food illustrations were used in the Sunday newspaper for the local supermarket. I painted every food you can imagine. I can draw a pretty mean potato! Sylvia Day is the #1 New York Times, No. 1 Sunday Times & internationally bestselling author of over twenty award-winning novels, including ten New York Times bestsellers and thirteen USA Today bestsellers. She is a number one bestselling author in twenty-nine countries, with translations in forty-one languages and over twenty million copies of her books in print. Visit her at sylviaday.com Dave Eggers is the author of ten books, including most recently Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?, The Circle and A Hologram for the King, which was a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award. He is the founder of McSweeneys, an independent publishing company based in San Francisco that produces books, a quarterly journal of new writing (McSweeneys Quarterly Concern), and a monthly magazine, The Believer. McSweeneys also publishes Voice of Witness, a nonprofit book series that uses oral history to illuminate human rights crises around the world. Eggers is the co-founder of 826 National, a network of eight tutoring centers around the country and ScholarMatch, a nonprofit organization that connects students with resources, schools and donors to make college possible. Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times bestselling author of The Interestings, The Uncoupling, The Ten-Year Nap, The Position, and The Wife. Her new novel, The Female Persuasion, has been named a most-anticipated book of the year by Time Magazine, Esquire, Entertainment Weekly, New York Magazine, and more. She was the guest editor of The Best American Short Stories 2017, and lives in New York City. ABOUT MAGIC TREE HOUSE: Widely regarded among parents, teachers, and librarians for its power to instill a passion for reading, Mary Pope Osbornes award-winning, #1 New York Times best selling Magic Tree House series is an international phenomenon and has sold more than 134 million books worldwide since its debut in 1992. The books have been translated into 33 different languages in over 30 international markets. All Magic Tree House books are available in print, as ebooks and Listening Library audio books, which are all narrated by Mary Pope Osborne. Visit WWW.MAGICTREEHOUSE.COM for more information about the series, activities, and more. MARY POPE OSBORNE is an ardent advocate and supporter of childrens literacy, and the award-winning author of more than 100 books for children and Teen & Young Adults, including novels, retellings of mythology and folklore, picture books, biographies, and mysteries. From 19931997, Ms. Osborne served as president of the Authors Guild, the countrys leading organization for published authors. She has traveled extensively in the U.S. and abroad, visiting schools and speaking on issues related to childrens literacy. She spoke at the UN regarding the importance of worldwide literacy and was profiled on NBCs Rock Center with Brian Williams for her continued efforts. Mary has donated over 350,000 books to underserved children across the country through her Gift of Books program. She resides in Connecticut. The creator of the Magic Tree House series, Ms. Osborne is also the coauthor of the companion Magic Tree House Fact Trackers series with her husband, WILL OSBORNE, and her sister, NATALIE POPE BOYCE. Follow Mary on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaryPopeOsborne The Magic Tree House Classroom Adventures Program is a free, comprehensive set of online educational resources for teachers developed by Mary Pope Osborne as gift to teachers, to thank them for their enthusiastic support of the series. Complete with free online resources including lesson plans, curriculum guides, and creative activities, the Classroom Adventures Program incorporates every book in the series, including the nonfiction Fact Tracker titles, enabling teachers to build upon students interest in Jack and Annies adventures, while simultaneously meeting core curriculum standards across a multitude of subjects. Educators can learn more at WWW.MTHCLASSROOMADVENTURES.ORG. Douglas Preston is the author of forty books, both fiction and nonfiction, thirty-two of which have been New York Times bestsellers, with several reaching the number 1 position. He has worked as an editor at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and taught nonfiction writing at Princeton University. His first novel, RELIC, co-authored with Lincoln Child, was made into a movie by Paramount Pictures, which launched the famed Pendergast series of novels. His recent nonfiction book, THE MONSTER OF FLORENCE, is also in production as a major television series from Apple. His latest nonfiction book, THE LOST CITY OF THE MONKEY GOD, tells the true story of the discovery of a prehistoric city in an unexplored valley deep in the Honduran jungle. In addition to books, Preston writes about archaeology and paleontology for the New Yorker, National Geographic, and Smithsonian magazines. He is the recipient of numerous writing awards in the US and Europe, including a shared Edgar Award and an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Pomona College. From 2019 to 2023 he served as president of the Authors Guild, the nation's oldest and largest association of authors and journalists. Scott Turow was born in Chicago in 1949. He graduated with high honors from Amherst College in 1970, receiving a fellowship to Stanford University Creative Writing Center which he attended from 1970 to 1972. From 1972 to 1975 Turow taught creative writing at Stanford. In 1975, he entered Harvard Law School, graduating with honors in 1978. From 1978 to 1986, he was an Assistant United States Attorney in Chicago, serving as lead prosecutor in several high-visibility federal trials investigating corruption in the Illinois judiciary. In 1995, in a major pro bono legal effort he won a reversal in the murder conviction of a man who had spent 11 years in prison, many of them on death row, for a crime another man confessed to. Today, he is a partner in the Chicago office of Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal an international law firm, where his practice centers on white-collar criminal litigation and involves representation of individuals and companies in all phases of criminal matters. Turow lives outside Chicago HAMPTON SIDES is the author of In the Kingdom of Ice, Ghost Soldiers, Blood and Thunder, Hellhound On His Trail, and other bestselling works of narrative history and literary non-fiction. His newest work, On Desperate Ground, will be published by Doubleday this October. Hampton is an editor-at-large for Outside magazine. His magazine work, collected in numerous published anthologies, has been twice named a Finalist for the National Magazine Awards in feature writing. A recent fellow of the Santa Fe Institute, he teaches literary journalism and narrative history at Colorado College. A native of Memphis with a BA in history from Yale, he lives in Santa Fe with his wife Anne. Hailed by NPR as a literary badass and a master storyteller with a rock and roll heart, Luis Alberto Urrea is a prolific and acclaimed writer who uses his dual-culture life experiences to explore greater themes of love, loss and triumph. A 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for nonfiction and member of the Latino Literature Hall of Fame, Urrea is the critically acclaimed and best-selling author of 17 books, winning numerous awards for his poetry, fiction and essays. Born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and American mother, Urrea is most recognized as a border writer, though he says, I am more interested in bridges, not borders. Urrea newest book, Good Night, Irene, takes as inspiration his mothers own Red Cross service. With its affecting and uplifting portrait of friendship and valor in harrowing circumstances, Good Night, Irene powerfully demonstrates yet again that Urreas gifts as a storyteller are prodigious (NPR). A book of poetry, Piedra, will also publish this year (Flowersong Press). The House of Broken Angels (2018) is a novel of an American family, which happens to be from Mexico. Angel de la Cruz knows this is his last birthday and he wants to gather his progeny for a final fiesta. A New York Times Notable Book, it was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction. In 2017, Urrea won an American Academy of Arts and Letters Fiction award and his collection of short stories, The Water Museum, was a finalist for the 2016 PEN-Faulkner Award and was named a best book of the year by The Washington Post and Kirkus Reviews, among others. Into the Beautiful North, his 2009 a novel, is a Big Read selection by the National Endowment of the Arts and has been chosen by more than 50 different cities and colleges as a community read. The Devils Highway, Urreas 2004 non-fiction account of a group of Mexican immigrants lost in the Arizona desert, won the Lannan Literary Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Pacific Rim Kiriyama Prize. The Hummingbirds Daughter, his 2005 historical novel, tells the story of Urreas great-aunt Teresa Urrea, sometimes known as the Saint of Cabora and the Mexican Joan of Arc. The book, which involved 20 years of research and writing, won the Kiriyama Prize in fiction and, along with The Devils Highway, was named a best book of the year by many publications. In all, more than 100 cities and colleges have chosen one of Urrea's books as a community read. Urrea has also won an Edgar award from the Mystery Writers of America for best short story (2009, Amapola in Phoenix Noir and featured in The Water Museum). Into the Beautiful North earned a citation of excellent from the American Library Association Rainbows Project. Urreas first book, Across the Wire, was named a New York Times Notable Book and won the Christopher Award. Urrea also won a 1999 American Book Award for his memoir, Nobodys Son: Notes from an American Life and in 2000, he was voted into the Latino Literature Hall of Fame following the publication of Vatos. His book of short stories, Six Kinds of Sky, was named the 2002 small-press Book of the Year in fiction by the editors of ForeWord magazine. He has also won a Western States Book Award in poetry for The Fever of Being and was in the 1996 Best American Poetry collection. Urreas other titles include By the Lake of Sleeping Children, In Search of Snow, Ghost Sickness and Wandering Time. Urrea attended the University of California at San Diego, earning an undergraduate degree in writing, and did his graduate studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder. After serving as a relief worker in Tijuana and a film extra and columnist-editor-cartoonist for several publications, Urrea moved to Boston where he taught expository writing and fiction workshops at Harvard. He also taught at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette. Urrea lives with his family in Naperville, IL, where he is a distinguished professor of creative writing at the University of Illinois-Chicago. ERICA JONG (Bio used www.ericajong.com) Erica Jong--novelist, poet, and essayist--has consistently used her craft to help provide women with a powerful and rational voice in forging a feminist consciousness. She has published 23 books, including nine novels, seven volumes of poetry, six books of non-fiction and numerous articles in magazines and newspapers such as The New York Times, The Sunday Times of London, Elle, Vogue, The New York Times Book Review and The Wall Street Journal. In her groundbreaking first novel, Fear of Flying (20 million in print around the world in more than forty languages), she introduced Isadora Wing, who also plays a central part in three subsequent novels--How to Save Your Own Life, Parachutes and Kisses, and Any Woman's Blues. In her three historical novels--Fanny, Shylock's Daughter, and Sappho's Leap--she demonstrates her mastery of eighteenth-century British literature, the verses of Shakespeare, and ancient Greek lyric, respectively. Erica's memoir of her life as a writer, Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life, came out in March 2006. It was a national bestseller in the US and many other countries. Erica's much anticipated novel, Fear of Dying, is due for publication by St. Martin's Press in September 2015. A graduate of Barnard College and Columbia University's Graduate Faculties where she received her M.A. in 18th Century English Literature, Erica Jong also attended Columbia's graduate writing program where she studied poetry with Stanley Kunitz and Mark Strand. In 2008, continuing her long-standing relationship with the university, a large collection of Erica's archival material was acquired by Columbia University's Rare Book & Manuscript Library, where it will be available to graduate and undergraduate students. Ms. Jong plans to teach master classes at Columbia and also advise the Rare Book Library on the acquisition of other women writers' archives. Calling herself "a defrocked academic," Ms. Jong has partly returned to her roots as a scholar. She has taught at Ben Gurion University in Israel, Bennington College in the U.S., Breadloaf Writers' Conference in Vermont and many other distinguished writing programs and universities. She loves to teach and lecture, though her skill in these areas has sometimes crowded her writing projects. "As long as I am communicating the gift of literature, I'm happy," Jong says. A poet at heart, Ms. Jong believes that words can save the world. Known for her commitment to women's rights, authors' rights and free expression, Ms. Jong is a frequent lecturer in the U.S. and abroad. She served as president of The Authors' Guild from 1991 to 1993 and still serves on the Board. She established a program for young writers at her alma mater, Barnard College. The Erica Mann Jong Writing Center at Barnard teaches students the art of peer tutoring and editing. Erica Jong was honored with the United Nations Award for Excellence in Literature. She has also received Poetry magazine's Bess Hokin Prize, also won by W.S. Merwin and Sylvia Plath. In France, she received the Deauville Award for Literary Excellence and in Italy, she received the Sigmund Freud Award for Literature. The City University of New York awarded Ms. Jong an honorary PhD at the College of Staten Island. In June 2009, Erica won the first Fernanda Pivano Prize for Literature in Italy. Erica Jong lives in New York City and Weston, CT with her husband, attorney Ken Burrows, and standard poodle, Belinda Barkowitz. Her daughter, Molly Jong-Fast, is also a writer. Internationally bestselling author Tess Gerritsen took an unusual route to a writing career. A graduate of Stanford University, Tess went on to medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, where she was awarded her M.D. While on maternity leave from her work as a physician, she began to write fiction and in 1987, her first novel, Call After Midnight, was published. It was just the first of 32 suspense novels that shes written over a 36-year writing career. She also wrote a screenplay, "Adrift," which aired as a 1993 CBS Movie of the Week starring Kate Jackson. Tess's 1996 medical thriller, Harvest, marked her debut on the New York Times bestseller list and her novels have hit bestseller lists around the world ever since. Among her titles are Gravity, The Surgeon, Vanish, Listen to Me, and her upcoming spy thriller, The Spy Coast, which has just been optioned by Amazon Studios for a television series. Her books have been translated into 40 languages, and more than 40 million copies have been sold around the world. Her series of novels featuring homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles inspired the hit TNT television series "Rizzoli & Isles," starring Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander. She lives in Maine. For more information on Tess Gerritsen and her novels, visit her website: www.tessgerritsen.com or www.tessgerritsen.co.uk. Margaret Atwood is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her novels include Cat's Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin and the MaddAddam trilogy. Her 1985 classic, The Handmaid's Tale, went back into the bestseller charts with the election of Donald Trump, when the Handmaids became a symbol of resistance against the disempowerment of women, and with the 2017 release of the award-winning Channel 4 TV series. Her sequel, The Testaments, was published in 2019. It was an instant international bestseller and won the Booker Prize. Atwood has won numerous awards including the Booker Prize, the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade and the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2019 she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature. She has also worked as a cartoonist, illustrator, librettist, playwright and puppeteer. She lives in Toronto, Canada. Photo credit: Liam Sharp Ishmael Reed (b. 1938) is an acclaimed multifaceted writer whose work often engages with overlooked aspects of the American experience. He has published ten novels, including Flight to Canada and Mumbo Jumbo, as well as plays and collections of essays and poetry. He was nominated for a National Book Award in both poetry and prose in 1972. Conjure (1972), a volume of poetry, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and his New and Collected Poems: 19642006 (2007) received a Gold Medal from the Commonwealth Club of California. Reed has also received a Lila WallaceReaders Digest Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Blues Song Writer of the Year award from the West Coast Blues Hall of Fame, a Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the National Institute for Arts and Letters, and a MacArthur Fellowship. Reed taught at the University of California, Berkeley, for thirty-five years and currently lives in Oakland, California. As a reporter who was the first Latina in many newsrooms, Maria Hinojosa dreamt of a space where she could create independent, multimedia journalism that explores and gives a critical voice to the diverse American experience. She made that dream a reality in 2010 when she created Futuro Media, an independent, nonprofit newsroom based in Harlem, NYC with the mission to create multimedia content from a POC perspective. Futuro does this in the service of empowering people to navigate the complexities of an increasingly diverse and connected world. As the Anchor and Executive Producer of the Peabody Award-winning show Latino USA, distributed by NPR, as well as Co-Host of In The Thick, the Futuro Medias award-winning political podcast, Hinojosa has informed millions about the changing cultural and political landscape in America and abroad. She is also a contributor to the long-running, award-winning news program CBS Sunday Morning and a frequent guest on MSNBC. Hinojosas nearly 30-year career as an award-winning journalist includes reporting for PBS, CBS, WNBC, CNN, NPR, and anchoring the Emmy Award winning talk show from WGBH Maria Hinojosa: One-on-One. She is the author of two books and has won dozens of awards, including: four Emmys, the John Chancellor Award, the Studs Terkel Community Media Award, two Robert F. Kennedy Awards, the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Overseas Press Club, and the Ruben Salazar Lifetime Achievement Award from the NAHJ. She has been honored with her own day in October by New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio and has been recognized by People En Espaol as one of the 25 most powerful Latina women. Additionally, Hinojosa was the first Latina to anchor a PBS FRONTLINE report: Lost in Detention which aired in October 2011 and was the first to explore abuse at immigrant detention facilities, garnering attention from Capitol Hill as well as both the mainstream and Spanish-language media. As a reporter for NPR, Hinojosa was among the first to report on youth violence in urban communities on a national scale. During her eight years as CNNs urban affairs correspondent, Hinojosa often took viewers into communities rarely shown on television and continued that work longform on Now on PBS. At Futuro Media, Hinojosa continues to bring attention to experiences and points of view that are often overlooked or underreported in mainstream media, all while mentoring the next generation of diverse journalists to delve into authentic and nuanced stories. In 2018 she was a Fellow at Shorenstein Center at the Harvard Kennedy School and is a frequent speaker across the country. In 2019, she was named the inaugural Distinguished Journalist in Residence at her Alma Mater, Barnard College. She lives in New York City with her husband and two children. Angie Cruz is a novelist and editor. Her fourth novel, How Not To Drown in A Glass of Water is forthcoming Fall 2022. Her novel, Dominicana was the inaugural book pick for GMA book club and chosen as the 2019/2020 Wordup Uptown Reads. It was shortlisted for The Womens Prize, longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction, The Aspen Words Literary Prize, a RUSA Notable book and the winner of the ALA/YALSA Alex Award in fiction. It was named most anticipated/ best book in 2019 by Time, Newsweek, People, Oprah Magazine, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Esquire. Cruz is the author of two other novels, Soledad and Let It Rain Coffee and the recipient of numerous fellowships and residencies including the Lighthouse Fellowship, Siena Art Institute, and the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute Fellowship. Shes published shorter works in The Paris Review, VQR, Callaloo, Gulf Coast and other journals. She's the founder and Editor-in-chief of the award winning literary journal, Aster(ix) and is currently an Associate Professor at University of Pittsburgh. She divides her time between Pittsburgh, New York and Turin. Rachel Vail Author Biography Questions 1.What is your favorite childhood memory? Can't say I have just one, but here is one among many: My father, an avid amateur gardener, had determined to get rid of a rock in the middle of his flower bed in our backyard. The rock turned out to be the size of Tennessee, but he just kept digging for a few years, trying to budge the thing, which created an ever-changing landscape for backyard adventures. My younger brother Jon was my constant companion out there, and our favorite game was "Time Machine," which involved a mysterious metal thing sticking up from the ground - obviously a gear shift for moving into the past or future. Jon was the pilot, in charge of bringing us to different times, depending on how he moved the mysterious metal thing. I was the "teller": I would tell the story of what time period we landed in, what was happening, the dangers we faced, which bad guys were chasing us around the back, the rock, and the Way Back (where we weren't even supposed to go but we did; don't tell!), what we needed to collect around the yard -- a magic gem, a twig from the tree of wonder -- and how we would be able to get back to our time Machine to get back to home and the present when my Mom called to us to come in for dinner. My younger son was complaining yesterday that the problem with grownups is that they don't play as runny-aroundy as kids. He is absolutely right. 2.What is your favorite memory from when you were a teenager? How about my least favorite but most useful? I was at a dance at the Rye Golf Club with my best friend, Jill. We had decided to really go for it, get all duded up and mascara'ed. I wore my hottest outfit -- a one-piece, strapless pantsuit. (It was the early 80's; that's what was hot. Trust me.) We had practiced dancing all week: step-together-clap; slightly bored expression combined with slight head-bobbing. Luck was with us at first -- two cute boys came right over to ask us to dance. I looked slightly bored while repeating my mantra internally: step-together-clap, nod. The boy was smiling at me, checking me out. I was succeeding! Jill step-together-clapped her way to my side and said, "Don't panic, but your top fell off." I looked down and there for everybody to see was my white strapless bra, looking like an ace bandage across my lack-of-anything to hold up my wilted outfit. I ran straight to the Ladies' Room with my arms crossed over my chest. Jill was right behind me, and sat beside me on the cold linoleum as I cried. "I was naked," I wailed. "Only briefly," Jill assured me. "I am never leaving this Ladies' Room," I told her. "Okay," she said. "I'll stay here with you." "Forever?" I asked. "Sure," she said. "We'll be two little old ladies here when they come to wreck the building, but we still won't leave." "I'm serious," I said. "Me too," she answered. I recall that moment whenever I am writing and my character needs to feel the soul-burning humiliation of being exposed in front of the world -- whether figuratively or literally. I can still feel the cold shivers in my fingers, still smell the disinfectant in the restroom, still hear the distant echoes of the disco beat beyond as I sat there feeling utterly stupid and naked and embarrassed. But I also use it when I want to feel how reassuring it is for a character to realize a friend is willing to stick with her forever, no matter what. 3.How did you end up becoming a writer? What I always loved to do was read, tell stories, imagine being other people, eavesdrop, and not wear shoes. What else could I end up becoming? 4.What other jobs have you tried? I worked in a book store, which I loved except when people interrupted my reading by trying to make purchases. I was a really good babysitter and a lousy magician but kind of a fun clown at kids' birthday parties. I worked in theater -- acting, directing, selling tickets, dressing and undressing actors (!), ironing costumes, sewing stuff... I still can't make buttons stay on all that well, but I am a pretty decent ironer. I also tutored for SAT's, and GRE's, as well as regular school subjects from bio and algebra to English and writing, and specialized in working with kids who have learning troubles. 5.What first appealed to you about writing for teens? Well, I started writing my first book when I was 22, so I'd had some recent experience. But really there were two things. I had always looked young for my age, and used to vow to myself that I would remember what it really felt like to be a kid and NEVER condescend when I grew up but rather bear witness to and show respect for the struggles of metamorphosis experienced by a teen going through it. Also, a brilliant playwrighting professor I had in college told us that drama exists in the life-or-death moments: those instances when the character's life is at mortal risk are the scenes you should write. I realized that he had just described pretty much every moment of being a teenager. Just a walk down the corridor in eighth grade can feel like a death march, if somebody looks at you sideways, then slides her eyes away and bends to whisper to somebody else, who turns immediately to look at you -- and snickers. Oh, dread. Life could end or begin at any moment, beside your locker, and the murd