Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Writing is my therapy.
All my books center around death in some way.
Having a book published whenever is a huge honor.
Being more happy than not helps you get up every day.
Sexuality is very fluid, but I never chose to be gay.
'They Both Die At The End' is about coming face to face with your own mortality.
I haven't written adult fiction, but I do not sugarcoat grief - or what I expect grief to be.
I'm always writing from some difficult place and seeing how the character survives... or doesn't.
There are happy stories out there, but I think some of them may raise false expectations for teens.
Especially with grief and heartbreak, you can go through these things and think, 'I will never be whole again.'
Absence is absence, you know? The loss of someone can be just as devastating if they're alive as if they're dead.
'History Is All You Left Me' is about the loss of your first love and how you move on beyond that and if you can.
The book industry is all about community, and it never really feels like anyone is competing against anyone, thankfully.
I'm building this reputation as YA heartbreaker, I know. Some people like 'happily ever after,' but I don't think that's me.
When I really want to be comforted myself, what I look for is a story about how somebody could survive something really difficult.
My favorite uncle died when I was eleven, and that was two months after 9/11, so that was a particularly difficult time with my family.
I had definitely missed the literary development game with Paper Lantern Lit, and writing exclusively wasn't giving me complete fulfillment.
I was very lucky to befriend many authors before even signing with an agent, and they were all so supportive of me when I told them I was in the middle of my first book.
I don't think I'm capable of giving a character every possible victory, no matter how much I love them, without feeling as if their ending isn't genuine to their actual trials.
There will be opportunities for hope and happiness, and happiness will return to your life, but you will always feel that loss if that person really meant that great a deal to you.
For me, I remember being 19 and coming out as bi to all of my friends. I'd had girlfriends, and all of these experiences and such, and then, as I got older, I started identifying as gay.
It wasn't until I hit 20 that I became an obsessive reader, I think, which feels a little funny considering I was a bookseller for five years and have been reviewing YA novels for four years.
Whereas Books of Wonder excels with children's literature, McNally Jackson is where I go for my adult new releases, and no, it has nothing to do with the fact that Taylor Swift shops there, too.
Death is the one - the one thing we don't have many answers for. We understand how people die, but we don't know what comes next, and that's something that's always fascinated and disturbed me and frustrated me.
When you're overthinking a thought like the way I do, I can get completely pulled away from something I'm in the middle of because my thought channel just won't help me get from point A to point B without any difficulty.
My first book was on the grittier side of life. A week before being published, I realized all of my main characters come from single households. That was something that, when I lived in South Bronx, that's what it was like.
I'm definitely of the 'Harry Potter'-transfigured-me-into-a-reader-and-writer generation. And that's really all I read throughout my teen years, because I really devoted all my time to writing and reading friends' fan-fiction.
I have OCD and, literally, walking on the left, needing things to be in even numbers with few exceptions. One and seven, any number that ends in seven, that's all me. All the tics like the pulling of the ear and scratching of the palms, all me.
The Strand prides itself for its '18 miles of books,' and they are not kidding - that store goes on for da-a-a-a-ys. There are carts outside with dollar books, all sorts of fun merchandise inside, and an extensive selection of reduced priced books. If you're looking to buy a $30 hardcover for $20, The Strand is your new best friend.