Photo courtesy of Patty Nason.

YARN editors were thrilled to interview Malinda Lo, the brilliant and witty author of “Ash.” If you haven’t yet had a chance to read “Ash,” (which you definitely should) it’s the Cinderella story retold with a fairy/lesbian twist. Malinda’s prose recreates an ancient world, where fairies dominate the forests alongside farming villages, and carriages carrying want-to-be-princesses clatter down cobbled streets leading to the castle. When you read “Ash,” you travel into the world of the fairytale with all five senses.

“Ash” is is a nominee for the Andre Norton Award, was a finalist for the 2010 William C. Morris Award, and was a Kirkus Best Young Adult Novel of 2009. Prior to writing “Ash,” Malinda worked in publishing, as an entertainment reporter for AfterEllen.com, and earned Masters degrees from both Harvard and Stanford. “Huntress,” Malinda’s second book is due out in April of 2011. Malinda also blogs regularly.

On “Ash”

YARN: Many fairy tales and folk legends carry a message for young boys and girls about how they are expected to behave in society and the consequences if they fail.  American children grow up to idolize Disney princesses who win their prince with a beautiful face and a charming song. Your blog notes the many versions of Cinderella which served as research when you wrote “Ash.” What specific choices did you make while writing Ash’s character to make her different from the Cinderellas of the past?

ML: A tongue-in-cheek but accurate list: (1) She does not talk to animals; (2) she does not sing while cleaning the house; (3) she is not a blonde; (4) she does not fall in love with the prince.

More seriously, I didn’t really think too much about how Ash should be different from other Cinderellas. I actually tried to find the common threads among those different versions. The one thing that is true across all Cinderellas is that she is a young girl who loses both of her parents. That’s where Ash’s character began.

YARN: You mention on your blog that the first version of the novel had Ash fall for the prince. Was Sidhean present in that version of the story? How did the fairy conflict evolve within your tale and what research made you first consider using the magic of a powerful and seductive fairy instead of a plump, maternal fairy godmother?

ML: Yes, Sidhean was present in the first draft. All of the main characters were present in the first draft.

When I began my research for the book, I knew that I wanted a fairy in it, but at the time I didn’t know much about fairy folklore. I was an anthropology graduate student, so I began to read 19th century folklore about fairies in Ireland and England. That folklore leads directly to a concept of fairies as powerful and seductive supernatural creatures. The plump, maternal fairy godmother is a much more recent development.

My decision to make the fairy a male instead of female was probably my first big choice in terms of differentiating my version of Cinderella from others. I’m pretty sure I chose to make Sidhean male because I liked the idea that fairies shared traits with vampires, and I was a big fan of Spike on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Sidhean started out as a Spike-like figure, but he did change and evolve as I got to know him. (For example, he is not as funny as Spike.)

YARN: What role do fairy tales have in defining our ideas of love and companionship? Do you see “Ash” as an important step in reclaiming and redefining those ideals?

ML: This is such a complex question, and I encourage readers who are interested in exploring this further to check out Marina Warner’s “From the Beast to the Blonde,” as well as Jack Zipes’ numerous analyses of fairy tales.

Briefly, I’m sure that many readers can think of fairy tales in which the main female character is saved by a prince, or is rewarded for being good by marrying a prince. This does underscore both heteronormativity and class hierarchy; in other words, a girl should marry a rich man. But I do want to point out that fairy tales can actually be very complicated things, and there are different ways to interpret them.

I think that “Ash” is part of a long history of women reclaiming stories for themselves, and of queer women writing themselves into stories. “Ash” hasn’t even been out for a year yet, so I can’t predict how important it will be in the long run. But I’m happy to be part of that history.

YARN: You’ve noted that the point of the novel is that “Ash” falls in love, not that it’s with a woman.  Can you explain why this is a significant distinction?

ML: If the novel were about Ash falling in love with a woman for the first time, it would be a coming-out story. A coming-out story typically involves dealing with homophobia, facing others who don’t accept one’s sexual orientation, and learning to accept oneself. (I’m generalizing here!) The main point is: In a coming-out story, homophobia usually exists.

I say that “Ash”s about falling in love, period, because there is no homophobia in Ash’s world. The gender of Ash’s love interest is irrelevant. She doesn’t have to come out, because it’s totally normal for her to fall in love with a woman. It is very much a fairy tale, especially for queer readers.

YARN: Can you tell us a little about “Huntress” which is being published in Spring 2011?

ML: “Huntress” is set in the same world as “Ash,” but several centuries earlier, so there are no crossover characters. It is about the origin of the first huntress in the kingdom, and it’s fantasy. I think of it as a hero’s quest, except with two girls as the main characters. And there’s adventure and weapons and romance and lesbians!

On Writing

YARN: You mention on your blog that when beginning a book, you try to write 1500 words a day. Is this only when you’re working on a new project? Do you write everyday, even when not working on a novel or editorial piece? Do you keep a journal or diary?

ML: The 1500 words/day goal is only for when I’m writing a rough draft, when the point is to just get the story out on the page. I have to keep moving forward during this stage, and having that word count goal helps me to do that.

I don’t write fiction every day. Although I do write emails, blog posts, etc., daily; and I have noticed that if I don’t work on fiction a couple of days a week at least, I start to get antsy. That’s a fairly recent development, though.

I do keep a journal. I actually keep two: one for writing about my current novel, the other for writing about anything. One is basically more personal than the other.

YARN: How much does outlining and research play a role in your writing process prior to drafting a novel?

Huge! I love to research and I do a lot of it before I start. The research really helps me to conceptualize the story and the characters. I have to write outlines for my publisher, but I would write an outline even if I didn’t have to. I like to plan out the story in advance. That doesn’t mean the finished book is just like the outline, but it’s a great pre-first draft draft.

YARN: Can you tell us a bit about your revision process? Does your editor see your first draft? How much time does revision take? Any advice for our teen writers about revision?

ML: I think of the first draft I write as a rough draft. Nobody sees that except me! (The very idea of it horrifies me!) I clean it up a bit before I send what I call the first draft to my agent and editor. Revision can take a long, long time, but I suspect it varies depending on the book. I worked on “Ash” for eight years, but I had a day job at the time, and I wasn’t working under contract (i.e., with deadlines) the whole time. I worked on “Huntress” for one and a half years.

I like to encourage all writers to not think of revision as a horrible thing. Revision is really the most important part of writing because this is where stories begin to sing. This is where you shape the story, hone the characters, and sharpen your prose. Revision is writing.

YARN: As a career writer in many forms, there must have been one point at which you had a piece that either you didn’t want to write, or the writing didn’t come easy. Any advice to our teen writers who might be facing writer’s block?

ML: I think there are a few different kinds of writer’s block, and in order to deal with it successfully, you have to figure out which one you’re facing. Here are some different types:

1. I don’t wanna write this crappy report! — This is the kind of writer’s block I encountered when I had to write articles about subjects I was just tired of (e.g. reality television). However, I was a working writer and I had deadlines, and if I didn’t write the article I wouldn’t get paid. So in this case, the only solution is to suck it up and write the thing. The sooner you write it, the sooner it’ll be done. (This kind of writer’s block often afflicts students forced to write academic papers on topics they didn’t choose.)

2. I have no idea what to write! — I used to have this kind of block, and I think it stems from liking the idea of writing, but not actually having written enough. If you’re stumped as to what to write, you might be a beginning writer. The solution here is to grab some of those writing books that have exercises, and do them. Just write about whatever. Also, keep a notebook where you can note down ideas. The more you write (and the more ideas you jot down), the less you will have this problem. These days, I have the opposite problem: There are way too many things I want to write!

3. I’m totally stuck in this scene and don’t know what to write next! — I deal with this a lot myself. The thing that works for me is taking a break from writing by doing some sort of physical activity: exercise, yard work, painting, whatever. Just stop thinking about the place where you’re stuck and let your subconscious do the work. At some point, the solution will float to the surface.

On Reading

YARN: After reading “Ash,” and while waiting for “Huntress,” are there any YA books you would recommend to our readers?

ML: “Beauty” by Robin McKinley – My favorite retelling of Beauty and the Beast.

“Rampant” by Diana Peterfreund – A group of girls fight killer unicorns. Seriously awesome! And the sequel, “Ascendant,” comes out this October. I even blurbed it I loved it so much.

“Silver Phoenix” by Cindy Pon – An Asian-inspired fantasy adventure with mouth-watering food descriptions and fantastic magical creatures.

YARN: A while back, you wrote an article for AfterEllen.com about the evolution of LGBT young adult fiction. How do you see the genre continuing to evolve? Are we moving in the right direction?

ML: I think that publishing is still on the track I noted in that article: moving away from typical coming-out stories and including more LGBT secondary characters. Personally, I’d love to see more books about lesbian/bisexual teen girls (there still seem to be more books about gay boys than girls), and I’d like to see more LGBT teens in genre fiction (fantasy, science fiction). I have high hopes!

YARN:  Thanks, Malinda, and good luck with “Huntress”!  We can’t wait!

Asha hurried through the aisle of pulsating washers and whirling dryers. The machines sang like a choir of middle-aged American ladies, but she ignored them. She was headed for the table marked “Give-Aways.”

The laundry room could have been a refuge if it hadn’t been for the other, darker room beside it, which housed the apartment building’s incinerator. There was no telling when the huge creature would come to life, roaring, snarling, devouring trash that came hurtling down chutes from the apartments above. Even when the incinerator was silent, the pitch-black room stank of scorched rubber and melting plastic.

“Keep away from that machine,” Ma warned the girls. For once, Asha found it easy to obey.

Ma mistrusted the laundry machines, too. She and the other Indian women in the building scrubbed their laundry by hand and then took it up to the roof, where they pegged it to lines.

The colors of the discarded quilt had faded into a soft pattern of pastels that smelled faintly of lemons and soap. Asha grabbed it and dashed past the incinerator. The apartment upstairs smelled of stale spices from yesterday’s cooking. Asha threw open her window, climbed onto the fire escape, and closed the curtains tightly behind her.

One ladder led down to the next floor and the next, and another led up and up, as high as the roof, where her mother and sister were collecting laundry.  Asha arranged the quilt in a corner and sat cross-legged on it. The autumn afternoon was fading quickly. Wispy, rose-colored clouds floated behind tall buildings, and sparrows swooped and called to each other. Far below, children screamed as they played tag.

Like a deep-sea diver coming to the surface, Asha drew in a long, deep breath. Then, she opened a small notebook and began writing. Words were springing up inside of her; she’d been waiting all day to spill them across the page.

“Osh!” a voice called from inside. “Ma wants you!”

Asha sighed. “Coming!” she answered.

“Were you out on that fire escape again?” her sister asked. “She’ll find you sooner or later. She always does.”

“No,” Asha answered, lifting her chin. “Not this time.”

Rita shrugged. “I’ll cover for you,” she said. “But be careful. Come on.”

On the roof, Ma was removing clothespins from the line. “Where were you?” she asked Asha, frowning.

Asha shrugged. “Rita found me,” she said.

Ma shook her head and went back to work. The girls began to fold a sheet, stepping together to make the corners meet, backing away to stretch it taut again.

A neighbor approached them, another Indian woman who lived down the hall. Asha nudged Rita, and the sisters ducked behind the one sari still floating on the line. This woman liked to pull them aside and ask what the fighting had been about the night before. Flinging the sari out of her way, she surveyed the girls. First, she held Rita’s chin and swiveled it from side to side, like she was checking a mango for bruises. “This one’s a good girl,” she told Ma. “You’ll have no trouble with her.” Then she pinched Asha’s cheek. Hard. “But this one …? Sly. I’d keep my eye on her if she were mine.”

With Ma’s back to her, Asha picked up one of the laundry baskets and escaped. It was chilly on her balcony. She wrapped the quilt around her shoulders and watched the sparrows dance against the darkening sky.

Inside the apartment, a door slammed shut. “Where’s your sister now?” she heard Ma ask.

“I don’t know, Ma,” came Rita’s dutiful answer.

Ma’s sigh drifted out to the fire escape. “That girl always wants to be alone.”

She was right. Asha pursued solitude with a measured desperation, like a hungry tiger stalking a rare delicacy. In India, when she was six, she’d crawled behind a sofa with her books and crayons. Her grandmother had pulled her out, dusted her off, and scolded her. Next she’d escaped to the flat, low-walled roof, but her aunts had convinced Ma that she would fall. The servants were instructed to padlock the door. When they came to America, she’d discovered the park, a wide, grassy field studded with shady, empty benches. But Ma forbade the girls to leave the building alone. Then, about two weeks later, Asha claimed the fire escape.

Her sister’s frantic whisper found her in the darkness. “Dinnertime, Osh! Hurry!”

Baba was already eating, and Ma was heaping rice and curry on their plates. As usual, she was muttering under her breath, and Asha caught a phrase or two as she took her seat at the table: “Sending half his paycheck to his mother. What does that leave for us?”

“We have enough!” shouted Baba. “That fellow on the eighth floor can’t even find a job — I found one as soon as we came to this godforsaken country.

Ma turned, wooden spoon jabbing the air like a sword. “Some job! Hardly pays enough to put food on the table.”

“Enough!” Baba said, slamming his hand on the table. “Money, money, money. YOU wanted to come to America, remember? I have a good mind to go home. With or without you.”

“Did you girls hear that?” Ma asked. She put one hand to her throat, and Asha saw her fingers tremble. “Tell him, Rita, to stop talking like this. Tell him how much it upsets you.”

Rita looked at her father, who sat glowering at the head of the table. “Baba —” she whispered, but she couldn’t finish.

Asha saw the steam rising from the rice, the spices sizzling in the pan on the stove, the red chili peppers her sister was slowly removing from her plate. With one last swig of water, she stood up. “I’m done,” she announced. She had mastered the skill of gulping balls of rice after only one or two chews. She could even swallow a chili pepper without flinching.

She hurried to her fire escape, where cold, still air greeted her and cooled her cheeks. A neon sign across the street made the colors of the quilt glow beneath her knees. Asha pulled out her pencil and notebook and began to write.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Asha dropped the window with a bang. Ma was holding the notebook in one hand and the quilt in the other. “Where did you get this … dirty blanket?”

“It’s mine,” Asha said. “Give it back.”

“Is this what you’re learning in America? How to dishonor me with crooked answers? I asked where you found this. Answer me!”

Asha took a step forward, and then stopped. “In the laundry room,” she muttered.

“And you brought it here? Full of other people’s germs? I’m getting rid of it right now.”  Ma gathered up the quilt and headed for the kitchen.

“No!” Asha cried, running after her mother.

Ma was opening the incinerator door in the kitchen wall.

“Stop!” Asha shouted, trying to grab the quilt.

Rita joined her. “Stop, Ma!” she yelled.

The tug-of-war continued. Then, with a sudden burst of strength, Ma yanked the quilt out of the girls’ hands and stuffed it down the chute. Asha groped for it, but it was too late. The incinerator consumed Ma’s offering without a sound.

The three of them stood for a moment, breathing heavily. Then Asha looked around, remembering her notebook. She spotted it on the floor, picked it up, and brushed it off. It was full of words she had woven together, words that made pictures glow in her mind each time she read them. “Did you read this?” she asked her mother, holding it between them, a last token of parley.

Something in her voice made Ma take a step back. She turned to her older daughter. “I have to find out why she’s becoming so sly, don’t I?”

“You shouldn’t have read it,” Rita said quietly.

Even then, Ma didn’t meet Asha’s eyes. For a moment, she glanced around the room fearfully, like a child in a crowd of strangers. Then, she sat down, gathered up the loose end of her sari, and pulled it over her head.

Asha cradled her notebook in both hands. It was too late for this one – the words inside were captured. But in the top drawer of her desk a new notebook waited, full of blank, cool pages that would shelter the sentences to come. Opening the door in the wall once again, Asha tossed the old notebook inside. It tumbled and banged down the sides of the chute, as if her words were shouting their last defiance, like zealots refusing to recant.

When she could no longer hear the roar of the fire, Asha walked to where Ma was sitting. Gently, she fingered a bit of the soft, faded cloth of the sari, admiring the ease of her mother’s ancient escape.

A Brief Q&A with Mitali Perkins

YARN is thrilled to be featuring “Fire Escape” by Mitali Perkins. Mitali’s books, such as “Secret Keeper,” “Monsoon Summer,” and “First Daughter, Extreme American Makeover” shed light on the experience of a teen living between two cultures. Mitali has a gift for transporting her readers into worlds so vividly realized that the settings are tactile, the colors are vivid, and the private thoughts of the main characters resonate in the reader’s mind days after the book is completed. “Bamboo People” is Mitali’s most recent novel and has received much critical acclaim including being a Junior Library Guild Selection and being nominated for ALA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults.

YARN: Today’s teens are constantly tethered to technology. Cellphones, computers, ipods… “The Fire-Escape” points out the importance of quiet and time for reflection. How do you point out the importance of quiet reflective time for young aspiring writers to whom being alone is almost a foreign concept?

MP: It’s not just teens who are tethered to technology, that’s for sure. I’m addicted myself. It feels a bit hypocritical to give advice here, but I’ll share what I do to build in quiet reflective time.

I start each day with prayer and writing in my journal. Sundays are screen and plug free for the most part, and I take at least 2 overnight retreats a year on my own to read, write, and be silent. I back away from technology in the summer and winter, too, and stay more connected in the fall and spring, when I’m also interacting more in real life via school visits.

Solitude is an absolute must if we’re to give our imaginations space to flourish and create good stories.

YARN: What advice might you give young people who are considering writing across the lines of culture?

MP: If you’re an “outsider” to the culture, do your homework. Listen, do research, love someone deeply who belongs to that culture. Let it be read by people of a different class and/or culture than yours and receive their critique. Consider whether the story wouldn’t be better served if written by an “insider,” and have the grace to let it go. Or to wait on it.

The other part of the equation is power. If you’re perceived as a powerful outsider thanks to race and/or class and/or gender, your story is going to be told and heard differently. Are you going to commandeer space on the shelves and displace a story that could be told by a less powerful “insider”? Or is there room in the global library both for your version and hers?

On the other hand, I don’t believe in setting up some kind of “right-ethnic-credentials” apartheid in stories. Who gets to decide who writes for whom, anyway? We’re all essentially outsiders when we write fiction, right? Otherwise, we’d be writing memoir. Let’s represent lots of races and cultures in our stories as the setting and plot demand.

Bottom line—cross cultures boldly, but humbly.

YARN: Teens today are barraged by a slew of images of people who are considered to be important and perfect. How do you encourage young people to ignore the faces on the book covers and the television screen long enough to believe that the stories they have to tell are valid and important?

MP: Even though our culture is saturated with celebrity worship, I think we’re all still on the hunt for heroes. Real heroes. That’s what story offers — the chance to know and root for characters who, though flawed, still strive to be and do good.

Life gets interesting when we study nuance of character, focus on the undercurrents in conversation, explore the stuff that happens under the waterline of the human psyche, and fiction does that so well.

Stories, written and verbal, also hand more power to the imagination of the hearer and reader than stories in a movie or television show. The reader gets to picture the characters and setting, and be in charge of the timing of story consumption. I like the fact that control is shared, don’t you?

Your Books:

“Boy Toy”:

YARN: “Boy Toy” is an amazingly difficult novel to describe in terms of plot. However, it seems like Josh’s main issue is not so much the actual sexual abuse but the memory of it.  Could you elaborate on the fine line between the two, and what you were thinking about this distinction as you wrote?

BL: I have always said that “Boy Toy” is not a book about abuse—it’s a book about baggage. It’s about figuring out how to deal with the stuff in your past and somehow move on. That’s the distinction I drew in my own mind as I was writing the book. The book isn’t about Josh dealing with being abused—it’s about Josh ADMITTING he was abused. That’s his triumph—letting go of his own guilt and accepting that he was powerless as a child.

“Fanboy and Goth Girl”:

YARN: “Sandman” by Neil Gaiman is referenced countless times in “Goth Girl Rising.”  With all the comics out there, what made you reference “Sandman” so often?  For those of us who haven’t read it, can you say a little something about its significance?  Also, when you think about Kyra, what other books do you thinks she’s into?

BL: I knew that Kyra would be obsessed with “Sandman” much in the way that Fanboy was obsessed with Bendis, so it made sense to reference it heavily. About halfway through writing “Goth Girl Rising,” I decided to re-read the entire “Sandman” series and it was really weird how many parallels to my story I found in there. I hadn’t read “Sandman” since the original monthly series ended in the early nineties, so it was like reading it again for the first time.

I think “Sandman” is significant because it really was in the vanguard as comics transitioned from kids’ stuff to “stuff for everyone.” If you read the series at one go, you can see how the comic book industry was changing and maturing, with Gaiman’s work at the forefront of that movement.

I don’t see Kyra as a big reader, to be honest with you. She’s a much more casual reader than anything else. There are certain comic books—“Sandman,” “Optic Nerve,” some manga—that she would be obsessed with, but she’s not likely to have her nose buried in a book at any random moment in time. That’s Fanboy.

YARN: As a young female I (Lourdes) was highly empowered when reading “Goth Girl Rising.” Kyra touches upon topics I do not see much in YA, and she declaims them all. Girls always feel this pressure to “upgrade” physically, like in “Girl, 15, Charming but Insane”—when I read that, I remember wondering why anyone would stuff her bra with bags of soup (the minestrone variety, if I remember rightly. I suppose it was for humor. I did enjoy the moment when when they popped, though).  Some girls might realize there is no need for this kind of thing in the end, but the thought always seems to be there. Kyra dislikes such thinking. So, my question is: How do you know what teen girls think about? How is it possible to create such a realistic female when being a male writer? Was it more difficult, or easier, to write a female narrator than your male narrators?

BL: You know, when it comes to knowing what teen girls think, it’s really just a matter of paying attention. I’ve always have a lot of female friends, and I just listen to them. When you actually listen to people, you come to understand their fears, their concerns, their desires. So when it came time to write Kyra, I felt like I had a pretty good notion of what it’s like to be a girl today—the social pressures, the cultural forces, stuff like that. And then you just add in the insecurity that comes with being a teenager—regardless of your sex—and I felt like I had a good handle on it. If the e-mails I’m getting from teen girls are any indication, I did a pretty good job at it, which is very gratifying.

I thought that writing Kyra would be tougher than writing Fanboy or Josh or Kross, but in truth, it was a piece of cake. I invented Kyra, after all—there’s no one in the world who knows her as well as I do. I just sat down, said to myself, “OK, now I’m Kyra—what am I thinking?” and the book exploded out of me.

“Hero Type”:

YARN: In “Hero,” Kevin realizes that his purpose is to open people’s minds, but ironically, sometimes Kevin himself is rather closed-minded about opposing opinions—this is such a great way to trust your readers and make Kevin a complex character.  But were you ever worried that readers with political leanings more like Kevin’s nemesis Riordan would stop reading the book?

BL: I gave that a little thought, but not much. I wrote “Hero Type” from a fairly angry place. I was angry about the sort of brain-dead way our culture approaches public issues and politics, and I didn’t care if I made people who disagreed with me angry. After all, they had already made me angry, so turnabout is fair play!

What I’ve discovered, much to my pleasure, is that the kids reading “Hero Type” have never really thought much about the issues Kross gets into in the book, so this is sort of their introduction to it all. So I hope that down the road when some brain-dead reactionary tries to convince them that it’s OK to censor, it’s OK to block speech, that they will respond, “Oh, hell no it isn’t!”

YARN: Do you see yourself staying in Brookdale much longer, with SAMMPark and the Spermling, and all the other great recurring themes and characters you’ve built there?

BL: Oh, I’ll definitely be returning to Brookdale. Right now I’m working on a bunch of projects that take me outside of Brookdale, but that won’t last forever. There are at least another half dozen or so books set in Brookdale, including companion books to “Boy Toy” and “Hero Type,” as well as a book that starts in Brookdale and then becomes a weird sort of road trip movie. So, yeah, I’ll be back. You haven’t seen the last of that place!

YARN: There’s a very interesting strain of voyeurism in your books—Fan Boy drawing Dina, Kevin with his videotapes of Leah, and Josh with his tapes of his psychiatric sessions.  Writers always have themes like this in their writing careers, and this seems to be one of yours.  Can you say a little bit about where it comes from, and what brings you back to explore the theme with different characters, in different ways?

BL: Wow. I never really thought about it until you brought it up in that context. You could probably even say Kyra is a bit voyeuristic in “Goth Girl Rising,” following Fanboy around and watching him from a distance.

I’m not sure where it comes from. I think that growing up I always felt like a bit of an outsider, so my characters tend to be outcasts who look in on the rest of the world from an external vantage point. They don’t feel like they can participate directly, so they watch instead. And a big part of my stories is that moment when the characters decide to stop watching and instead take action: Fanboy accepting his sister, Josh finally connecting with Rachel, Kross going to California, Kyra admitting she loves Fanboy.  “Wolverine: Worst Day Ever” is probably the most literal iteration of this theme, with Eric invisible for all intents and purposes, but finally risking his life at the end to help Wolverine.

Other people’s books:

YARN: You’ve had experience writing in multiple genres—several YA novels, and for the middle school set, the graphic novel “Archvillian” and its sequel, as well as the comic “Wolverine: Worst Day Ever.” Have you noticed any differences between YA and Middle Grade? Are there things you can get away with in one that you can not in the other? Also, would you ever consider writing an adult book or picture book?

BL: First of all, “Archvillain” isn’t a graphic novel—it’s a prose novel. Just wanted to clear that up.

The differences between YA and middle grade are really differences of language. You obviously want to steer clear of cursing in middle grade, but you also want to modulate your vocabulary for an audience that doesn’t have as highly developed a sense of language. You don’t want to frustrate a middle grade reader with words that are just beyond his or her development.

Content-wise, you can do anything in YA. Anything at all. But with middle grade, while you can tackle pretty much any topic, you want to do so with a bit more circumspection and discretion. I think I could have written a middle grade version of “Boy Toy,” for example, but it would have been done very differently, with less explicit moments and more left to the imagination.

YARN: Oops, our bad.  Sorry about “Wolverine.”  Next question!  What writers do you admire that you think have guts?

BL: I think David Levithan has guts—he’s ego-less as a writer, which is something I really admire, especially since I’m such a control freak. His ability to collaborate just blows me away. Pete Hautmann has guts—I love the way he tackles really huge issues with fearless humor. And I think Chris Crutcher and Terry Trueman are great examples of writers with guts.

YARN: Have you ever read a book and wished you wrote it instead?

BL: Oh, sure—plenty of them! Pete Hautmann’s “Godless” is one of the best books I’ve ever read, and I wish I’d written it. “Going Bovine” by Libba Bray.  “The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay” by Michael Chabon. Those are just a few books I wish I’d written.

YARN: Thanks for all these great answers, Barry.  Can’t wait for your next book.

And his next YA series, “I Hunt Killers,” is about a teen whose father is a serial killer. The series is described as “Dexter meets Silence of the Lambs for teens.”

Yeah. Guts just about sums it up.

And we haven’t even gotten into the genre-crossing he’s done by writing middle grade novels and comics, or his awesome blog. For details and to follow him online, check out his website.

But for all his guts, Lyga is also an extremely smart, sensitive writer. He handles all that touchy material with an intelligence and sense of humor that’ll keep you engrossed to the last page—and leave you wanting more. Also cool and noteworthy: In all his YA novels so far, Lyga has embarked on a project very like that of Honore de Balzac, a 19th century French writer who wrote a collection of novels and stories referred to as the “Human Comedy,” all of which were set in the same place (Paris) with recurring themes and characters. Lyga’s human comedy is set in the American anytown of Brookdale, and there are several recurring themes and characters: the Spermling, the Jurgens girls, SAMMPark, and more. What a great way to create a whole YA world without all the expectations of an actual “series.”

Okay, enough of us. Let’s here from the man himself:

Stuff we’d love to know about you:
YARN: In the acknowledgements to “Fanboy and Goth Girl” you mention that Tom Perrotta* told you to embrace your comic book passions. Can you tell us a little more about this relationship, and how Mr. Perrotta impacted you and your writing?

BL: Tom was my creative writing professor in college. He’s obviously a phenomenal writer, but he’s also a terrific teacher. At the time that I was in college, comic books weren’t considered to be as cool as they are now—they weren’t really considered a valid art form by many people. As a result, I felt sort of self-conscious in the creative writing class, surrounded by people who were reading “real” literature, as I sat there with my comics. Tom took me aside one day and told me that my love of comics made me unique in that class and that I shouldn’t be ashamed of it. It took me a few years, but I finally understood what he meant, embraced my own geekitude, and the rest is history.

YARN: Your characters are often worriers (Kevin of “Hero Type” frets over Leah, his video secrets, and his divorced father; Josh of “Boy Toy” worries about everything; FanBoy constantly checks the comic convention website to make sure his idol will be there, and worries about what his mother will think of his relationship with Kyra). Were you a worrier as a teen? What kinds of things did you worry about?

BL: Oh, God, yes! I’ve always been a worrier and I suspect I always will be. Warren Zevon wrote a great song, “Worrier King,” that I feel was written just for me. I think like my characters, I worry about anything and everything, depending on the time of day and what’s on my radar. If I’m working on a book, I worry whether or not I’ll finish it. If I have a book coming out soon, I worry if anyone will like it. There’s always SOMETHING to worry about!

YARN: On a related note: In your “Book Page” interview, you define geeks as “people who are obsessed with something, possibly obsessed beyond the bounds of what is considered good mental health, and don’t mind letting that obsession dictate large portions of their lives.” And this is certainly true of each of your main characters. Might you reveal some thing(s) you obsessed over as a teen?

BL: Well, I certainly obsessed over comic books—in that regard, Fanboy and I are very, very similar. And like most of my characters, I obsessed over girls. Stuff like that. Nothing out of the ordinary there, I don’t think. I also obsessed like mad over my grades. In retrospect, I’m not sure why—school came very easily to me, but for some reason, I stressed over it a lot.

YARN: In “Goth Girl Rising,” the way Kyra discovers “Sandman” was so poignant and true. The best and most unforgettable books we will read in our lives are often found when simply browsing. How did you come across “Sandman,” or another book that’s meant a great deal to you?

BL: Well, I really stumbled into “Sandman.” You have to remember that I’m older than my characters—when I discovered “Sandman,” it was being published as a series of monthly comic books…and it was less than a year old! The publisher had produced a bunch of extra copies of issue #8 and given them to comic book stores to give away. The guy who ran my local comic book store handed me one and said, “I bet you’ll like this.” I was immediately captivated, so I made sure to pick up the next issue when it came out. And I kept buying it every month for the next five or six years, until it ended.

Most of the great, influential books I’ve read in my life I’ve simply stumbled upon. One of my favorite books ever is “Dealing In Futures,” a short story collection by Joe Haldeman. I found that as a kid at the local library. I think the title just grabbed me. I had no idea what it was when I picked it up, but I practically inhaled that book at one go!

Writing Process:
YARN: What’s your writing day like?

BL: I wish I could describe something exciting, but it’s pretty boring. I usually write for a couple of hours in the morning, then hit the gym, then go back and write more in the afternoon. Depending on my schedule and my current projects, I’ll either keep writing at night or read/do research.

Sexy, eh?

YARN: What’s your writing process like, from the start of a novel to the finished product? What’s your favorite part of the process?

BL: I actually give a fairly detailed description of the entire process on my Blog: That’s about as exhaustive as it gets, really.

My favorite part is a sort of amorphous, ill-defined moment: It’s when two seemingly disconnected moments in a project connect. You can’t predict it; you can’t plan for it. You’ve got two things planned and they don’t quite jibe, but some part of your brain tells you that it’ll work anyway. And then—one day—they suddenly click into place. It’s amazing. It happens at least once per project, and you can’t be ready for it. It’s the best feeling in the world when it happens!

YARN: We love that in your blog and in a recent interview with “Comics Spotlight,” you are all about re-writing. Can you say a little something more about your re-writing process, and maybe give our teen writer-readers some advice?

BL: OK, here I have to cop to something—until I went back and looked at that interview, I didn’t remember that question at all! And I honestly don’t know what I was thinking when I answered it because I don’t think I’m a heavy rewriter at all. I tend to blast through things one time and do very little rewriting later. So I might not have been thinking clearly when I answered that question.

But you know, when I was starting out many years ago, I did a lot of rewriting. I think the key to rewriting is not to bleed all of the life and energy out of your first draft. Your first draft usually has a lot of passion in it, and it’s all-too-easy to go through and neuter the excitement when you rewrite. Rewriting shouldn’t be about adding lots of adjectives or upgrading your vocabulary with the help of a thesaurus—it should be about making the story clearer and more immediate to the reader.

YARN: What advice would you give a teen who has a writing assignment that seems like a drag?

BL: Find a way to adhere to the letter of the assignment, but make the spirit more in tune with your own. If you’re supposed to write about a day in the life of a weasel, for example, go ahead and make it a weasel with superpowers. Or find a way to play around—write a poem or a song instead of a paragraph. Challenge yourself.

YARN: Come back next week for more of our interview with Barry Lyga, as he talks about his own books and those of other YA writers you know.

*For those who might not know, Mr. Perrotta is another writer, most famously of “Election,” on which a movie with Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick was based.

Image courtesy of Ali Smith.

We’re indebted to the imagination of Meg Cabot. She takes the dreams of every girl…and then allows us to live them. What if I suddenly found out I was a princess? What if I magically became a runway model? But Meg’s heroines show us that life’s problems don’t suddenly disappear with newfound beauty, power or wealth…and this is why we truly love her. As fun as her books are, they make us think too.

Meg Cabot is the author of over fifty novels for adults and teenagers. Her “Princess Diaries” series is available in 38 countries and has been made into two hit Disney movies (both of which are so charming, even your dad will enjoy them–though he might lie about it later!) In addition to this series, Meg is the author of “All-American Girl,” “Mediator,” and “1-800-Where-R-U” series. Her latest “Airhead” series has been described as part romance, part science fiction, and part crime-thriller! The final installment of the trilogy, “Runaway,” is released on April 20. We can’t wait to get our hands on it.

And now, YARN’s interview with Meg Cabot!

YARN: You’re being interviewed by Cecil Castelucci at the LA Times Festival of Books.  Readers and writers often wonder how pairings of writers and friendships between writers come about–How did you meet Cecil?  What other writers are you in regular contact with, and what brought you together?

MC: Cecil is an amazing writer and it was obviously divine intervention that she and I got paired up for the festival, because I have loved her work from afar for years!  I adored “The Plain Janes,” especially because I used to work as an illustrator and if I’d ever gotten an assignment like “The Plain Janes,” I never would have quit in frustration because no was giving me good female empowerment stories to draw (I felt like I had to start writing my own)!

I’ll be speaking on another panel at the Festival with Rosalind Wiseman (another author whose work I love.  “Mean Girls,” anyone?), and Robin Benway (“Audrey, Wait” is one of my all time faves!), and also Don Calame, whose book “Swim the Fly” is hysterical, and also Amy Goldman Koss, whom I think is FAB!

Most writers  are workaholics who shun social activity in lieu of meeting their next deadline until their publisher forces them out of their house for events like the LA Times Festival of Books, so I’m really looking forward to seeing so many of the writers whose work I’ve admired for so long!

YARN: Has being a writer for adults and children ever gotten you into any sticky situations with readers or their parents?  When writing adult books, do you ever feel a responsibility to your teen readers in case they pick up one of your adult titles?

MC: My responsibility as a writer is to entertain!  I do that by staying true to the voices of my characters.  Having readers who are Allie Finkle’s age (middle grade) reading at an 8th grade level (YA) and above (adult) is pretty common–I was the same way when I was a kid!

This is something parents should be proud of!  I know mine were.  I wanted to read everything I could get my hands on.  The worst thing a parent can say to a reader like that is “No, you can’t read that. It’s not appropriate.”  That only makes her want to read it more, and then she’ll sneak it, have questions, and the parent won’t be around to answer them.

Just the other day a foreign publisher emailed me to ask if it was OK if they could put WARNING: FOR ADULT READERS ONLY on one of my adult books because a parent had complained that she’d caught her teen daughter reading it.  I just laughed and was like, “Really?  So putting a warning on the book is the way this lady wants to solve the problem of the fact that she can’t communicate with her daughter?” Way to parent, lady.

My parents let me read whatever I wanted, because we live in a free country, and this is one of our constitutional rights.  They just made themselves available in case I had questions.  And I did!  “What does this mean?  Why did they do that?”  My parents were just like, “Well, that’s something adults do, you can’t do that until you’re older, and when you do, you should blah blah blah.”

By not making a big deal out of it, it wasn’t a big deal.  Just because your kid is reading about older people doing stuff doesn’t mean your kid is going to go out and do that stuff, because the values you teach in your home are more important to your kid than anything he or she reads about someone doing in a book.

So while I totally understand the concerns of the parents I hear from (and I hear from a lot of parents), I certainly can’t write with those in mind.  Parenting their child is not my responsibility.  Entertaining my readers is my responsibility.

YARN: As a writer who understands the world of deadlines, do you have any advice for our teen readers who often get writing assignments that feel like a drag?

MC: Don’t wait until the night before it’s due.

YARN: Many of your books are about a character’s quest for, or unexpected attainment of, popularity or celebrity (Mia from “Princess Diaries,” Samantha from “All-American Girl, and Em from “Airhead” all come to mind).  As a celebrity writer, what aspects of their plights to you sympathize with most?  What parts of being a celebrity writer do you most enjoy?

MC: I can’t really think of any of my characters who sought out popularity or celebrity, except Steph in “How To Be Popular”!

And she learned a sad lesson that I saw many of my own friends learn in middle school and high school when they tried to hang with the “in” crowd.

And that’s that, once you become popular, you often find that some people will seek out your friendship for reasons other than that they genuinely like you: they just want to use you to become popular themselves.  Or if you have money, they often just want you to give them some.

This may sound  cynical, but look at all the cases in the media today of people like Tiger Woods, or Sandra Bullock’s husband.  Did those women like those men because they were such nice people?  No.  They liked them for the fame and money they could attain because of them.

That’s why your best, real friends are the people who liked you before you became popular.

I don’t consider myself a celebrity writer, and I think it’s funny that anyone would consider me one!  If you saw me right now you definitely wouldn’t say that.  I haven’t showered or brushed my teeth yet and it’s nearly noon and I look really gross.

YARN: The “Airhead” series allows readers to live like a supermodel through the main character, Em.  However, Em quickly discovers that perfect looks don’t fix problems caused by a lack of confidence. Do you have any advice for your teen readers about how to develop self-confidence? How important is confidence as a writer?

MC: You have to love yourself before anyone else can love you!  There are definitely things you’re good at, maybe even better than everyone else you know.  Part of growing up is finding out what those things are!  You might have  to fail at a few things in order to find out what you truly enjoy and what your strengths are (I tried: ballet, softball, theater, art, singing, musical theater, social work, art therapy, just to name a few).  No big deal!  Don’t let failing get you down.  It’s part of finding out who you are.  Practice makes perfect.

Develop your strengths and skills, and believe in yourself, no matter what anyone else says.  I got rejected a jillion times, but because I believed in myself and loved writing more than anything (maybe a little TOO much), I was like, “I don’t care what anyone says.  I’m going to keep trying!”

But of course, be sensible, too!  You still need to pay the rent.  So go after your dreams, but always have something to fall back on if they don’t work out!  The last thing you want to do is live in your parents’ basement.  ACK!  (I mean, unless they have a really cool basement.)

Her hugely popular apocalyptic series begins with Miranda in LAWKI, a sixteen your old junior in high school whose private diary is the story of the novel. We start reading in the spring, when the world is atwitter about the fact that a meteor is supposed to hit the moon, an astronomical event on the order of Haley’s Comet, the kind of thing everyone in Miranda’s rural Pennsylvania neighborhood stays up late to watch. Except the light show isn’t all fun and games. Instead, the meteor hits the moon and shoves it closer to earth: “It was like if you’re playing marbles and one marble hits another on its side and pushes it diagonally,” writes Miranda.

All hell breaks loose. Tsunamis. Floods. Volcanoes whose ash covers the sky in a permanent gray winter, eclipsing the sun. And that’s just the beginning.

Miranda and her family–her mother, and two brothers–hunker down in their house, deciding to gut it out with an enormous stash of canned goods, hoping against hope that the powers that be (the government, NASA, the geniuses of the world) will set the world straight before they freeze or starve to death. But this isn’t just a page-turning survival tale. It’s also the story of a girl who fights with her mother and siblings, who wants to be kissed and to meet her lifelong hero and crush–an Olympic figure skater from her hometown. The life-and-death circumstances of the novel give Miranda’s teen angst a razor edge that cuts into readers who stay up late into the night to discover her fate.

“the dead and the gone,” which follows the same meteor story from the point of view of Alex Morales, the son of Puerto Rican immigrants in New York City–is much, much darker. In a good way. All bets are off here. Like in the “Harry Potter” books, no one is safe. Alex is stranded in his family’s apartment with his two sisters, only one of whom he particularly likes. Their parents are gone. One of the central questions of the book is: Will the parents ever come home? If you believe in miracles like Alex’s religious sister Bri, then hope is on your side. If not, then. . .

This is a gruesome story, told in unflinching detail. There are dead bodies, and terrible smells, and dirty dealings for precious cans of food. It’s also a moving story about a brother’s love for his sisters. And it’s deep, philosophically–Alex’s meditations on God and religion will turn your brain into a pretzel. Amazingly, there is humor too, largely supplied by banter between Alex and his cynical friend Kevin, but it’s downright macabre. Probably because the low moments of this book take you into such a deep, dark hole of despair, the happier moments might move you to tears.

All of which is why we can’t wait for “This World We Live In.”

And if all that wasn’t enough, Susan Beth Pfeffer is also really cool personally–read her blog, “Moons, Meteors, and Me,” (embed link) and you’ll see. With tons of humor and knowledge, she writes very regularly about her novels, about the publishing business, about figure skating and all her other passions. We highly recommend you take a look!

Photo by Marci Hanners.

But only after you read our interview. Without further ado, here is the YARN interview with the one and only Susan Beth Pfeffer.

First, a few personal questions:
YARN: In December on 2009, Lourdes and Kerri had the pleasure of hearing you speak about how you got your first book deal–75 books ago! Could you share that story with YARN?

SBP: It’s a very long story, so let’s see how I do with the short version.

It was my last semester at NYU and I was concerned about what I’d do for a living once I graduated. I had always wanted to be a writer, but I didn’t think I had the talent to make a career of it. Since I loved books and was particularly interested in kids’ books, I thought about becoming an editor.

I took a course in book publishing and one of the guest speakers was a children’s book editor. I asked his advice about getting into the field and he suggested (among other things) that if I wrote a book, even if no one published it, the very act of having written one would be so impressive I’d get hired.

So for that reason, and that reason only, I added writing a young adult novel into my other obligations that semester. When I finished the manuscript, I gave it to my book publishing professor, who very nicely read it.

He told me it was publishable, and he sent a letter of introduction to a small publishing house where he knew people. They read the manuscript and suggested various changes to me. I followed their instructions, they accepted the book, and poof–I was a writer after all.

YARN: On your blog, you mentioned you are a fan of figure skating and have skated in the past. Do you have a favorite male figure skater on which you based the character of Brandon in LAWKI? Any favorites for the upcoming Olympics?

SBP: I love figure skating; I’m a huge fan. If I were allowed one pick and one pick only for a gold medal, it would be the Chinese pairs team Shen and Zhao.

I pictured Johnny Weir when I wrote about Brandon. No particular reason why. I just did.

YARN: There’s a funny section in d&g where Alex and Julie go into the empty apartments in the building looking for food, and are overjoyed to find all the Oreos, Hershey’s kisses and “weird shaped pasta” in the “rich people’s apartment.” I (Kerri) bet it made more readers than just me wonder what’s in your kitchen right now. Though I’m hardly a rich person myself, I’ll cop to having weird shaped pasta and Trader Joe’s brand of Oreo. What about you?

SBP: I live off of fruit, frozen dinners and 100 calorie snacks. Except for the fruit, I’m pretty much a nutritional nightmare.

Schools all over America are using “Life As We Knew It” and “the dead and the gone” for their students, not just in English classes, but science and math and history. One school had its students go through their kitchen cabinets to determine how many calories there were at that very moment, so they could figure out how long they could live off of what was available to them.

I could live a very long time 100 calories at a time.

YARN: There is also a similar moment in LAWKI where Miranda finds a bag of chocolate chips and eats loads before finding out they were for her brother’s birthday. Thus my (Lourdes) question: Could you resist an entire closet filled with chocolate?

SBP: I actually prefer my chocolate in small doses, like chocolate chip cookies or ice cream. But I’d certainly nibble my way through a closet’s worth!

Your writing process:
YARN: What is your writing day like?

SBP: I used to have a set amount to write a day. In college, I wrote 5 pages a day, and once I graduated and became a real honest to goodness professional writer, I raised the total to 10 pages a day. If page 5 or page 10 ended in the middle of a sentence, I’d scribble the end down somewhere, but I never wrote another full page (or even another full sentence).

Then I mastered the 10 page chapter, so I’d write a chapter a day, but basically it was still 10 pages. I did that for years, and no one, myself included, could figure out how I managed to get all my chapters exactly the same length.

I should add here that I’m a very fast worker, and especially if I’ve given a lot of thought to what I was going to write, all this would take me 2 hours, maybe less. I’ve never been one for hard work.

After a while I decided I should go with a chapter a day, regardless of length, and suddenly some of my chapters were 11 pages or 12.

If I was in a hurry (especially when I was close to the end of a book and impatient to stop working), I’d do two chapters in a day just to get it done with. I don’t think before LAWKI, I ever took more than a month to write a first draft (and I pretty much submit first drafts; I’m not one for rewrites, since they’re work).

I loved writing LAWKI and d&g, but they were both so long (over 300 pages), they just took longer. I’d start writing in the morning and not stop, except for the occasional break, until suppertime. When I wrote both books and the third in the trilogy- “This World We Live In”- I didn’t write them in chapter format. After the book was finished, sections were divided into chapters. So I didn’t write a chapter a day, or 10 pages a day, or anything else so structured. I just wrote and wrote and wrote.

I did a lot of pre-writing with all three books. LAWKI and d&g took 6-7 weeks to write; TW more like 5-6 weeks (it’s shorter).

YARN: In your “Publishers Weekly” interview, you mention “pre-writing.” Can you explain a little more about what this process entails for you?

SBP: Pre-writing is my favorite part of writing. My books almost always start out with a what if. What if you were a teenager living through a worldwide disaster?

The process consists of asking question after question. Some of the questions have to do with the plot, others with the characters. As I figure out the answers, the book falls into place.

When I’m comfortable with the beginning, a fair amount of middle, and the essence of the ending, I start the actual writing.

The pre-writing can take several weeks. It’s incredibly valuable to me, since it solves the problems that invariably arise when you’re creating a story, and saves me the middle of the manuscript freakout, when you realize something just flat out isn’t going to work.

Different people work different ways, and there’s no right way or wrong way to do it. Other writers are willing to get partway through a book and then throw out a huge section of what they’ve written. But that’s not the best system for me.

YARN: Do you do this prewriting in your head, or do you write it down? For instance, do you outline each chapter, profile characters, etc?

SBP: I do it all in my mind. Sometimes I’ll write a kind of stream of consciousness story outline (I did that for “the dead and the gone”), but mostly I keep the information in my mind until I start the actual writing.

YARN: In your many years of writing books, did you ever write something that felt like an “assignment,” and was kind of a drag to write? If so, how did you work through that?

SBP: Oh yeah, there’ve been plenty of books that I wrote more for the money than the joy of the creative process. Some of those books did very well.

Generally, you get half the advance money for a book when you sign the contract and the other half when your manuscript is accepted for publication. That half an advance is a very strong incentive to keep working even if you’re not madly in love with the book you’re writing.

Writing is my job. Nobody loves their job every single minute of every single day. In the immortal words of Lou Grant, “That’s why they call it work.”

YARN: Do you have any tips for high school readers out there who have to write for assignments all the time?

SBP: Grit your teeth and do it.

Your Books:
YARN: Having been raised a Catholic myself (this is Kerri asking), I was particularly intrigued (and put on edge) by the Catholicism of the characters in d&g. As a result, I think I was interested in the fact that d&g is both more religious and more gruesome than LAWKI; plus I also know you’re a big movie fan, and many classic horror films also link religion and violence (“Exorcist,” anyone?). Do you want to comment on the connection between religion and violence in the book?

SBP: Well, d&g is more religious and more gruesome than LAWKI because I wrote LAWKI first and I needed d&g to be as different as possible, given that they’re both about the exact same disaster at the exact same time. Miranda and her family in LAWKI were not particularly religious, so I needed Alex and his family to be religious as a contrast. And I just figured death would be more visible in New York City than in an isolated house in small town Pennsylvania.

I made Alex Catholic because I needed him to be able to get help, and the Catholic Church in NYC has a very strong infrastructure. The martyrdom of St. Sebastian had nothing to do with it!

YARN: There is a lot of altruism in LAKWI and d&g, in which central characters like Miranda and Alex seem very willing to give up food for themselves in order to feed younger siblings. Sometimes, this felt like the “good” sibling making sacrifices for the (if not “bad,” then) less appreciative, and more selfish sibling. Can you say a little more about the altruism in the books? Was it inspired by anything in particular?

SBP: I’m the younger of two children, and most of my books are about kids with older brothers, like I have. Miranda is a middle child with an older brother who’s a lot nicer than she is and a younger brother. Alex has an older brother, who is only heard from a couple of times in d&g, and two younger sisters.

As a younger sister, I think it’s the obligation of older brothers to take care of me. I don’t think of that as altruism. I think of it as my birthright.

Both LAWKI and d&g are about the main characters learning to accept responsibility. In young adult books, it’s always a good thing if the main character shows growth during the course of the book. If the main characters in the books were Jonny or Bri and Julie, they’d be very different books (and you’d see their growth instead).

In other reading…
YARN: Have you seen a shift in YA literature since you first started writing? How has the genre grown, improved, changed?

SBP: I guess so. I’ve been writing YAs for decades; they must have changed over the years.

I don’t read children’s books. Basically I’m functionally illiterate about them. More than anything, I write to entertain myself, and I’m not all that interested in what else is going on in my field.

The “New York Times” review of d&g referred to how it didn’t follow the rules. A few months after the review appeared, I ran into John Green, who’d written it. I asked him what rules I hadn’t followed and he said it was that Alex’s parents never came back.

Who knew it was a rule that parents had to come back in a YA book? Apparently not me.

YARN: I (Lourdes) find it very interesting that you do not read many children’s books. This allows you to be less bound to the “supposed” rules of YA fiction. However, your books are extremely YA. What do you believe then is the true definition of YA fiction? Is it the main character’s age, plot, or just writer’s luck? In other words: Why are your books considered YA?

SBP: My definition of a YA is a main character under the age of 18, a PG13 vocabulary level, a main character who shows growth during the course of the story, and a limited amount of sex and/or violence.

Those are my rules and since I don’t read other people’s YAs, I can’t speak for anyone else.

YARN: You once wrote a fantastic blog entry discussing the business end of writing. What prompted you to write it and what was the response to it? (For example: John Green loved it and posted about it on his blog)

SBP: I’ve never had a salaried 9-5 job. I’ve always been a self-employed freelance children’s book writer. So I’m accustomed to thinking in terms of advances and royalties and sub rights. That’s how I make my living.

But I found out that the paperback of d&g was going to cost a dollar more than the LAWKI paperback, and I decided to write a blog entry about how happy that made me, since it meant I’d get more royalties. And as I was writing it, I realized there might be people who didn’t know about royalties. So I did an entry explaining the whole process of how writers get paid.

It turned out a lot of people didn’t know and were very interested. Apparently I broke another of those rules I never know about because I discussed exactly how much money I’d gotten for my advances ($20,000 for LAWKI, $30,000 for d&g–they were combined hardback/paperback advances).

I always enjoy other people’s shop talk. I guess people enjoyed mine as well.

YARN: On your blog, you mentioned that in 2009 you tracked every book you read–a very worthy resolution. During this process, did your reading habits change at all? For example, did you become aware of reading many books in a certain genre and therefore make an attempt to diversify? Or, was there any book you kind of wanted to read, but didn’t want to admit to reading, so you set it back on the shelf?

SBP: I have no shame, at least not when it comes to keeping a booklist.

I always think I read more non-fiction than fiction, and the booklist showed I did. The percentages were close to the same, but non-fiction books tend to be longer (and almost always take longer to read than novels).

What I did find was I read in spurts, and I read considerably more in the end of the year than I had in the beginning (which makes sense, since in the beginning of 2009, I was writing “This World We Live In”). I’ve been on a bit of a reading jag since New Year’s, but I’m about to enter a stretch of watching lots of figure skating and tennis, so I know I’ll be cutting down on my reading again.

I do read two newspapers a day and enormous amounts of unimportant stuff on the internet.

YARN: Are there any blogs (including those of fellow authors) that you’d recommend to other lovers of YA literature, and aspiring writers?

SBP: My friends Elaine Marie Alphin and Todd Strasser both have blogs, as does John Green. But most blogs I only stumble onto if Google tells me they mention me. You could probably make more and better recommendations than I can!

YARN: Do you Google your own name? How often? I, Lourdes, will admit I have done it more than once. Okay, about twice a month but who is counting.

SBP: I certainly check myself and my books on Google (and it’s amazing the things I find out that way that no one bothers to tell me). I also have Google well trained to let me know what’s going on by way of email. And I check my emails all the time!

YARN: Thanks, Sue, for answering all our questions! Good luck with “This World.” We can’t wait to read it.