When and why did you start writing stories? When did you decide to write professionally?
I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember–I started keeping a diary when I was around ten, and began writing daily (or almost daily) when I was seventeen. After college I started taking writing workshops, and it was then that I decided to take it seriously as a career.
Who Encouraged you to write? Who were your biggest critics?
One of my early mentors was the writer Pinckney Benedict, who is an amazingly gifted author. His short stories are staggeringly beautiful–I learned a lot from just reading them, and from his craft lectures on fiction. He encouraged me early on to take my work seriously. For critics, there were plenty in my MFA program…and a lot of their criticism was really helpful in making me a better writer (and a better self-critic of my own work.)
Do you have any advice for aspiring young YA writers?
Read as much as you can. Read books of all sorts, classic and contemporary–novels, short stories, and poetry. Try keeping a journal to see what it’s like to write privately. We’re so consumed with email and blogging these days that I think it’s easy to forget what it’s like to write without feeling self-conscious. The best writing usually isn’t self-conscious, so keeping a private journal that nobody reads besides you is a great way to teach yourself to write freely, without worrying what others might think of it.
Where do you think the future of Young Adult Literature is headed?
We’re lucky to be witnessing an amazing flourishing of YA literature right now, with so many incredible books being published. I think, and hope, it will keep growing.
How do you think the internet has / will change the publishing industry? Has it effected your work?
Things are definitely changing…I think no one is certain how it will turn out, though. Personally, I love paper and ink. In my dream world, all books would be published on beautiful thick paper, letterpressed, deckle-edged, with illustrated covers…but I’m pretty old-fashioned that way. I think it’s nice to have it both ways–some books stored digitally, to make it easy to travel with them and reference them, and beautiful cloth-bound copies of the books you especially love.
