Q : When did you start writing?
A : "I was writing at least when I was nine years old, and I got my big break in the seventh grade when my teacher, who knew I liked to write little commercials and things like that … challenged me to put them on in front of the whole school at an assembly we were having and they were a huge hit, and I was a star and have been chasing the same feeling ever since."
Q : When did you receive your first rejection letter? Your first acceptance letter?
A : "My first rejection letter was for an adult novel, and I did what a lot of people do. I stupidly gave money to some company, to some people who were going to edit it and promote it for me. My first acceptance letter was a phone call. We had just gotten back from vacation and my car broke down. I finally got to work—late—with grease all over my hands, and I had about a hundred messages on my voicemail and one of them was the one. The manuscript which was accepted was ‘Tangerine.'"
Q : Where did the inspiration for "Taken" come from?
A : "I was on a business trip in Cuernavaca, Mexico and the woman who I was staying with told me that I could not pay her directly, that I had to put the money in a secret account in Miami because if the other people in Cuernavaca knew that she had this big American account, she would be kidnapped. She had an armored guard outside her house as protection, as did the other wealthy people in Cuernavaca."
Q : Where did the inspiration for "Tangerine" come from?
A: "I was driving to work and saw all these citrus groves, which were being destroyed to make way for housing developments. These bulldozers would scoop up a whole tree and put it on a pyre. The fire department would come and set the pyres on fire until the trees were just mounds of black ash, which would then be spread over the ground. I have also played soccer from age eight."
Q : What is your writing routine?
A : "I commute to work every day and carry a handheld tape recorder, and I will role play scenes out on the recorder on my commute. When I get home, I sit down and write out the scenes longhand. By the time the story gets typed, it's on its third draft already. Everything has gone through an editing process before it goes out to be read by anyone."
Q : What made you decide to write "Taken" from a female's perspective? You have a certain fluidity about the sex of protagonists and narrators in your novels.
A : "My daughter is my biggest fan and my main reader, so she reads my manuscripts. I've always felt comfortable writing both."
Q : What do you feel is the future of print publishing, with the advent of Amazon's Kindle and the Nook and other e-readers like it?
A : "I don't feel like e-books will ever replace print publishing, and I feel like the same thing is going to happen to this as happened to the music industry, with illegal downloading and the like. I don't feel like print publishing should feel threatened."
