"It’s humor that finally made Scaredy what he is now. And writing humor was not something I knew I was able to deliver. I sat down one day and decided to approach this story in a new way, by being as ridiculous as I could. Then, ideas started popping in my head."

—on SCAREDY SQUIRREL (PB)

“
So, what I am trying to do, I think, is use the external and very dramatic threats involved in a suspense plot—murderers, kidnappers, drug dealers, whatever—as metaphors for the very real terrors of actual adolescent life.”

— on THE KILLER’S COUSIN (YA), among others.

AUTHOR UPDATE: Nancy Werlin

"However, a problem was clearly stated when one editor who liked my work began her critique ' 'Poetry does not sell!'"

— on EARTHSCAPES (PB)

"At first it was very difficult to write simple English and not "Geologeez" jargon."

 — on THE WORLD ACCORDING TO ROCK (PB)

"...Kurt Cyrus was going to illustrate. I knew from his other books that he drew great cows. But he almost turned the book down. He was tired of cows. The reason he agreed to do it was because..."

— on SIXTEEN COWS (PB)

Author Update: Lisa Wheeler

"I think studying novel writing through the years, as I worked on middle grade manuscripts, helped prepare me for writing a picture book."

— on LOOKING FOR UNCLE LOUIE
ON THE FOURTH OF JULY (PB)

"When you are a kid, everything can feel so super-charged, and yet as adults we forget this and figure that nothing in a kid's life can possibly be that important."

—on FLORA SEGUNDA (MG)

"When all the bids were in, Barbara chose Simon & Schuster Publishing, because their editor, David Gale, provided her with the best detailed letter of how he would market the book."

— on WHEN KAMBIA ELAINE
FLEW DOWN FROM NEPTUNE (YA)

Author Update: Lori Aurelia Williams

"The focus of the story changed as my characters became real. I had to abandon revictimization as a focus. Most women or girls don't report rape and most women of color don't receive any form of justice. I could work that angle, but that wasn't where my heart was. I did know what Thulani and Ysa were to each other and that this was stronger than formula."

—on EVERY TIME A RAINBOW DIES (YA)

"The chairperson of the committee called and asked if I minded being put on the speaker phone. She's told me she was calling from ALA so I was pretty excited."

— on HARD LOVE (YA)

AUTHOR UPDATE: Ellen Wittlinger

"It’s wise to have a basic idea of how you want the trilogy to play out before you start sending it off to publishers because one of their questions will be, 'Do you know how it ends?'"

—on ESCAPE FROM ARYLON (YA)

"One thing I kept waffling over was whether to have Steve the Dumpster Diver get hurt. I didn't want this book to be heavy-handed and preachy. Didacticism: the kiss of death in reviews! I didn't want my book to discourage "respectable people" from Dumpster diving. I wanted this book to be a call-to-action to all of us to stop wasting so much stuff, and an inspiration to make new things from junk."

—on THE DUMPSTER DIVER

“...soon enough, I started to get comments from the editor that certain changes needed to be made. The character was too fat. His hair needed to be wavy. The story needs changing.”

—on JAKE STAYS AWAKE (PB) and JAKE STARTS SCHOOL (PB)

"So I was on the rebound, so to speak, and wrote very gingerly. I wasn't exactly insecure but smarting. The thing was, I knew I was in the zone with this -- it was my kind of book. But it wasn't an easy book to unlock."

— on A THIEF IN THE HOUSE OF MEMORY (YA)