Laurie Halse Anderson, Sara Zarr, Emily Dickinson, Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, Jennifer Crusie, and Charlotte Bronte.
2.Who has had a major influence on your writing?
Without a doubt, Laurie Halse Anderson. Speak inspired me to break rules and taught me so much about voice. Then there's Jennifer Crusie who writes dialogue that I could read for days.
3.Can you name at least one book that you never finished?
Moby Dick. I have a severe loathing for hundreds of pages of description on the art of whaling.
4.What word or words do you always have trouble spelling?
Itinerary, Presidio, separate. Which completely sucks when I'm planning an itinerary for two separate visits to the Presidio. Thank goodness that hardly every happens.
5.What three adjectives best describe you?
Determined. Hard-working. Clever. Can I buy a noun? It would be NERD.
6.Which of your characters would you most like to be and why?
Quinn. To be honourable and loyal like her would be to have a deep friendship like hers.
7.Which author would you invite to dinner?
Jennifer Crusie. Because I'm in love with at least three of her books.
8.Where do you write?
Starbucks. They always have a bathroom and at least one student willing to watch your things while you use said bathroom.
9.When do you write?
Nights and weekends. I am not a morning person. Not even Starbucks can change that.
10.What makes you happy?
Making people cry. Seriously. I love when people read my books and it moves them. It's only fair since I usually cry when I'm writing difficult scenes. In public. At Starbucks. When you think about it, you kind of owe it to me to cry.
11.What do you most fear?
Bouncy houses. I was once in a bouncy house when someone unplugged the machine inflating it. Only the shame I would've felt at falling apart in front of several children allowed me to keep it together.
12.What is your favorite vice?
Kraft Mac and Cheese. Blue box or bust.
13.What is the quality you most like in yourself?
Silliness.
14.Would you be lying if you said your works were not autobiographical?
YES. And my pants would be on fire. Everything I write is patched together from pieces of me.
15.What are the qualities you most like in your friends?
The ability to be still and listen. Priceless.
16.What part of your personality do you detest?
The Questioner. She analyzes everything until the fun is squeezed out of it.
17.What is your favorite adjective?
Snarkly. My friend coined this term. It describes a cheap item (usually found at Ross or Marshalls) with sparkles that you can get snagged on. As in, Look what that snarkly purse covered in sequins and glitter did to my arm (hold up arm with bloody scratch)!
18.What is your favorite book?
It's impossible to narrow it down. My mood ring tells me what to read each day.
19.What book would you read three times?
It's a tossup between Jennifer Crusie's Bet Me and Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre.
20.To whom would you award the Nobel Prize for Literature and why?
J.K. Rowling. She made whole generations fall in love with reading. That is the ultimate literary excellence.
