Describe your latest project.
Avalon High is a novel for readers twelve and up about sixteen-year-old Ellie, who has moved with her medievalist parents to Annapolis, Maryland, for a year while they are on sabbatical. Starting a new school in a whole new state isn't what's got Ellie wigging, though... it's figuring out why the best looking, most popular guy at Avalon High seems to think he knows her so well, when they've never actually met. Could it be they knew each other in another life? And if so, does that mean Ellie and Will are destined to live out the same tragic destiny in this one? A sword, a love triangle, a pool raft... can Ellie put together the clues in time to — literally — save the earth?

Introduce one other author/illustrator you think people should read, and suggest a good book by him/her.
As a big fan of novels featuring funny teen "diarists," I was delighted to discover Susan Juby's Alice series. Sixteen-year-old Alice MacLeod lives in tiny Smithers, British Colombia, where she has been home-schooled since first grade, after having made the grave mistake of arriving at school dressed in a hobbit costume. When the first book in the series (Alice, I Think) opens, Alice is re-entering the public school system, hoping that this time, she'll fit in.

Alas, however, her hobbit days are still vividly remembered by her fellow Smithers teens. Between her thrift shop wardrobe, which includes moon boots and trousers in various shades of plaid, and her aspirations of becoming a novelist, Alice has no hope of ever going "mainstream" — a fact she uses to her advantage in the second book of the series, Miss Smithers (titled I'm Alice (Beauty Queen?) in the UK), when she enters the Miss Smithers "citizen" pageant after hearing each contestant receives a clothing stipend of $400 (which she promptly spends on one pair of leather trousers).

By the third (and hopefully not final) book in the series (Alice MacLeod, Realist at Last) Alice has been abandoned by her boyfriend, and has in turn abandoned novel writing for screenwriting, to hilarious effect. Alice MacLeod is the Canadian answer to Sue Townsend's hilarious Adrian Mole series, and like Adrian, I hope she'll be around for a very long time.

Offer a favorite sentence or passage from another writer.
"The autumn stars were milky-white and large as asters. Against their mild radiance the young cypresses stood like spears."
From My Brother Michael by Mary Stewart, my all-time favorite romantic suspense author.

How did the last good book you read end up in your hands?
I run an online teen book club, where we choose and discuss a non-Meg Cabot book once a month. This rules, because publishers send me books, totally free, to consider for the club. So I got a copy of Michele Jaffe's first YA novel, Bad Kitty, in the mail. And I loved it. How cool is that? I didn't even have to leave the house.

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I love animals, so I always wanted to be a veterinarian. The James Herriot books were some of my favorites growing up. Sadly, my math and science grades did not make a career in the veterinary field possible. I had to fall back on novel writing. But that's almost as good.

Share an interesting experience you've had with one of your readers.
Once a young reader at a book signing showed me a page from one of my books on which I'd listed every movie in which the actor Kevin Bacon appears naked. Pointing to the name Kevin Bacon, the reader said, indignantly, "That's my dad." Yes, the reader was Kevin Bacon's daughter. I wanted to die. Since then, I have toned down my obsession with Mr. Bacon (in my books — not in real life, of course).

Tell us about your pets.
Besides my one-eyed cat, Henrietta, a stray we adopted from Brooklyn thirteen years ago, we have recently added another stray cat — this one in possession of both eyes, as of this writing — whom we like to call Gem. The sad truth of the matter is that I wasn't aware that Gem actually belonged to a neighbor. Thinking she was a stray, I fed her canned tuna. She hasn't gone home since.

Name the best Simpsons episode of all time, and explain why it's the best.
Obviously, any episode featuring Lisa is the best, from Ralph's "Choo-choo-choose you" Valentine's Day episode, to the "Poser" environmentalist episode. But my particular favorite Lisa episode is the one where Lisa, about to introduce herself to a bunch of new kids on a beach, psyches herself up to overcome her shyness, only to be startled by a bird. Ducking back behind a pylon, Lisa says to herself, "It's only a bird. You can't control the birds. Yet."

That "yet" kills me every time, because it's clear Lisa has every intention of someday being able to "control the birds." That, I feel, is childhood in a nutshell: nothing seems impossible. Not even controlling the birds.