Welcome to Day 2 of the The Knife and the Butterfly blog tour! Today I’m over at Reading in Color, hosted by Ari. (Watch out, y’all, this gal is going places, starting with college next fall. She was the … Read more

Today is Day 1 of my blog tour for The Knife and the Butterfly. Yay! I’m over at Forever Young Adult with an excerpt, a quiz, and the snarky scoop on why The Knife and the Butterfly doesn’t need a glossary. … Read more

There is an explosion in my new (third) novel. How do I write it?

It’s strange the things we manage to draw on when we’re writing. I reckon that the shock I felt when I had a small-scale kitchen explosion… Read more

I know, isn’t it gorgeous? And when you read The Knife and the Butterfly in February of 2012, you’ll see just how perfectly the cover fits the novel. Knife… or butterfly? It’s all in how you look at things.

Here’s … Read more

People talk a lot about voice in writing. Voice is that hard-to-describe quality in a piece of writing that is at once internally consistent and capable of generating surprises. It’s not the same as character or personality; it’s a kind … Read more

Last week I told you to go see an expert instead of cruising the Internet for information. Now I get down off my high horse and tell you about my own research while writing The Knife and the Butterfly … Read more

(This week, I’m trying to overcome recent angst directed at one reviewer’s comments on YA fiction by reflecting on positive author-reviewer experiences.)

A sweet review from a YA reader makes me just as happy as a tree full of bright … Read more

What I’m about to say is going to make some people uncomfortable, so I might as well get it over with: teenagers are sexual beings.

Now, I’m not saying that teenagers are ready to have sex or should have sex. … Read more