Margaret Stohl
I first read Harper Lee's 'To Kill a Mockingbird' as a teen in school, like you did. I read the book alone, eating lunch at my locker, neatly scored oranges my mother divided into five lines with a circle at the top, so my fingers could dig more easily into the orange skin. To this day, the smell of oranges reminds me of 'Mockingbird.'Collection: Teen
The Lowcountry traditionally is a logical place where the big ships stopped and brought new things in from the ocean, and the islands have a mystical tradition. It is such a visual place, too, with these iconic villages with the Spanish moss and the village and historical homes and the coast.
I grew up sitting in my closet waiting to go Narnia.
I worked in videogames for 16 years before writing my first book in 2009.
We love what we love, and shared fandoms bring people of all ages and backgrounds into one great tribe.
The privilege, and the challenges, of taking on Black Widow have never been lost on me. I worked on the first 'Spiderman' game as well as 'Fantastic Four,' and I had always wanted to be able to tell more of a character-driven comic book story than was possible to fit into a game narrative.
I worked as a writer, lead designer, and creative director in the game industry.
Writing is the easy part. The 'getting it right' part is harder.
I'm up at dawn. I practically fall asleep at dinner.
My solo novel 'Icons' was optioned by Alcon Entertainment, the folks who made the 'Beautiful Creatures' movie, and that's gotten as far as a script, but no news yet.
I like to make an outline or cards and then utterly ignore them.
At heart, I would have to say I'm a pantser. I fully embrace the chaos of letting the unintended happen, on life and on the page.
It's a fallacy that people think that today's teenagers are shallow or somehow less intelligent than in the past.
Alden Ehrenreich is a drama nerd, and Alice Englert is indie girl. They're so cool in the way that our characters are cool.
If you look at 'Doctor Who,' it's a Time Lord in a blue box who travels around the universe. It's a silly concept, but it's one of the most brilliant, emotional experiences because it's sort of about what is humanity.
When you're writing about superpowers, you're writing about power. When you're writing about immortals, you're writing about mortality.
We kept my middle schooler home from school for three days before we turned in our final draft because she was so mean and so brutal at editing out all the cheesy bits. She would roll her eyes and make fun of us, and it was what we needed.
You better have your story down before you take it to a teenager.
I was an obsessive fantasy reader from the time I could read at all.
I was very shy - I didn't speak to anyone outside of my family until the fourth grade.
I was the person who stayed awake reading by the nightlight until the scary shadows made me crazy.
Anyone who says that writing for children or teens is easier than writing for adults has never tried it, because they are so much more critical than adults. You cannot get anything past them.
I think, to give our bookshelf a little credit, our area of the library and the bookstore has attracted stronger writers as it's started to thrive.
It's like how science fiction in the '50s was a way of talking about war without actually having to risk any political capital. The obvious metaphor is power and powerlessness, but I also think it's a way of experimenting with dangerous feelings in a safe arena and trying things out.
We wanted to celebrate the 'Dangerous Deception' release by letting everyone experience the thrill of sharing a book with a reader who wouldn't otherwise have one.
Sometimes people who sell books are seen as corporate salesmen, and people who sell reading are seen as literacy advocates, but you can't really separate the two.
You need books to read and readers for books.
Getting books out into the world helps us all.
I fictionship. I love fictional men.
I understand that fictional men aren't real. Not 'really real'. I know this the same way I wonder if my readers are disappointed when they meet me.
Han Solo would never wear the earring Harrison Ford wears.
Sam and Dean Winchester sitting on the top of the Impala sharing their feelings over a beer is a reward worth driving any 'Supernatural' demon away - but in real life, they'd have crippling co-dependency issues.
I was raised in a community of Christian orthodoxy that had traveled with my parents to Los Angeles when they moved there for my father's job.
Everyone reads Harper Lee personally. For me, 'Mockingbird' was about admitting my own hyphenated identity - about loving and hating my world, about both belonging and not belonging to the community I came from.
Harper Lee was my David Bowie, and I feel her loss in my bones.
People ask why do I write strong women characters, and basically, all the girls I know are strong; the girls I've had are strong. The women in my life are strong.
I'm always excited to see my good buddy Richelle Mead. She cracks me up. I never get to see Veronica Roth enough, either.
There's a lot of loneliness in a book tour. A lot of grilled cheese sandwiches alone in your hotel at night.
I always say, 'I'm cracked. My characters are cracked. And you, reader, you're cracked, too.'
Everything I write is about big feelings. What I care about is trying to be brave enough to feel how you feel and to be emotionally true.
It doesn't matter if it's aliens or emotional weapons or whatever - it's still a real story about big feelings that have to come out.
So you are a vampire." "I most certainly am not." He looked annoyed. "That's such a common phrase, such a cliche, and so unflattering. I suppose you believe in werewolves and aliens too. I blame television.Collection: Believe
Jump or stay in the boat.Collection: Darkness
These things are difficulties, not impossibilities. -- MaconCollection: Difficulty
When I first met you, that's what I remember. I looked up at the sky and thought, I'm going to love this person because even the sky looks different.Collection: Sky
I haven't left a mark on the world, but is that so bad? Considering how deeply the world has marked me?Collection: World
Ro trails his hands against the wall as he walks. The archivists look at him as he passes. Ro is good at irritating people; he'll find the one thing you don't want him to do, and do it every time. It's one of his many gifts.Collection: Wall
Aunt Mercy put down her tiles, one at a time. I-T-C-H-I-N. Aunt Grace leaned closer to the board, squinting. "Mercy Lynne, you're cheatin' again! What kinda word is that? Use it in a sentence." "I'm itchin' ta have some a that white cake." "That's not how you spell it." At least one of them could spell. Aunt Grace pulled one of the tiles off the board. "There's no T in itchin'." Or not.Collection: Aunt
I guess this was what it felt like to love someone and feel like you had lost them. Even when you were still holding them in your arms.Collection: Arms
I am powerful because of who and what I am. Not because of who I am not.Collection: Powerful