What is your favorite book that someone else wrote?

Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh changed my life because that book encouraged me to be a writer.

Which of your books is your favorite?

The book I’m working on is always my favorite.

How long does it take to write a book?

It depends on the book. It took about one year to write The Word Eater. It took about three months to write The Naked Mole-Rat Letters, which is a much longer book. I can’t explain why. Some books are easier to write than others.

Where do your ideas come from?

I get my ideas from lots of different sources. Sometimes from a personal experience. Sometimes an article I read in the newspaper will stimulate an idea. The most important thing to do is keep a writer’s notebook where you can store your ideas.

Why did you want to become an author?

When I was ten years old, my mother died. As you can imagine, I was very sad. I was also afraid that I would forget her. I wrote about her and about my feelings in my diary. Writing helped me to express myself, and it also comforted me. I liked the fact that once I wrote down a memory about my mother, it would be recorded for all time. I also found a lot of comfort in reading novels about characters who were also going through traumatic experiences. I wanted to be an author who could write books that children like me would enjoy reading.

Did you always want to be a writer?

I always wanted to be a writer, but it took me a long time to believe that I could actually become one. I started writing at the age of seven when my mother handed me a little spiral notebook and told me to keep a journal of our trip to California. I liked the fact that I could record something in my journal and then read it later. But I didn’t know any professional writers and didn’t believe I could become one until I was grown up. I “broke” into publishing by writing articles first. Then I began submitting my children’s books.

Have you ever been rejected?

Many times. Rejection is part of a writer’s life. You can’t take it personally. You have to keep trying to improve your work.

Do you like to write?

I love to write. Not all writers love to write. I wake up every morning and can't wait to sit at my dining room table and write. (I write on a laptop computer with a cup of tea nearby.) I especially love to write books for children. I think that's because I needed books when I was a kid. I turned to books when I was lonely or sad or confused or bored. It is extremely fun to think that kids are reading my books.

What’s the hardest part of writing?

I actually have bad circulation, so my hands get very tired when I’m writing a lot. It’s painful.

Do you have any other interests, besides writing?

When I get tired of writing, I love to play music and write songs. I also teach dance, choreograph, and do shadow puppetry.

Have you won any awards?

Yes. Fellowship for Children's Novel-in-Progress, The Heekin Foundation; Grant for Work-in-Progress, Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI); SCBWI National Magazine Merit Award; AZLA Young Readers’ Award; Arts in Education Grant, Target; Grant in the Arts, The Washington Post; Visiting Artist Grants, Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County, MD; Keisler Prize for Poetry, Indiana University, and more awards and grants for my work in theater.

What degree do you have?

I studied special education and dance at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. In graduate school, I studied fiction writing and poetry at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC.

Why do you write about naked mole-rats?

Some readers notice that naked mole-rats are not only in The Naked Mole-Rat Letters, but they are also mentioned in The Word Eater and Snarf Attack, Underfoodle, and the Secret of Life: The Riot Brothers Tell All. I first met naked mole-rats at The National Zoo where there is a cool exhibit. They are ugly and fascinating and inherently funny, I think, because of their name.

How much of your personal life is in yours books?

Writing fiction is a little like dreaming. In dreams, all sorts of odds and ends—images and people and conversations and objects and events—somehow float into your mind and make up the world of your dream. Fiction is sort of like that for me. Bits and pieces of experiences and images from my life float into my books.

For example, at the end of THE NAKED MOLE-RAT LETTERS, Frankie describes this event in Pepper Blossom, Indiana. On this special day, everybody from the small town meets at a park for a pancake breakfast and then assembles for a ritual group “hum” as the sun rises and later as the sun sets. It is safe for me to say that this does not occur in Pepper Blossom, Indiana. Since there is no Pepper Blossom, Indiana. I made it all up out of the bits and pieces floating in my mind. When I was a child, we had a ritual of meeting friends for a pancake breakfast in a park, which I loved. As a college student, I visited a commune on May Day. The ritual there was to greet the sunrise in a circle with lots of chanting. As a vacationer, I visited Key West and was highly amused by the ritual of everyone meeting to cheer on the sunset. I subconsciously blended all these images to make up the idea of Frankie’s “Sunrise/Sunset Hum.” You could probably take any scene, any object, any character in one of my books and trace it somehow to my past if you could only find its flight path.