I have a new essay in The New York Times Book Review this Sunday. I really enjoyed writing this one. Thank you to Justin Torres, Jennifer Haigh, Laurie Halse Anderson, Justin Cronin, Elizabeth Gilbert, Allison Amend, Kate Christensen, Mary Karr, Margot Livesey, Tobias Wolff, and George Saunders for speaking with me for the piece. They… Read more »
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Anniversaries
Today is the ten year anniversary of my father’s death, and I can’t believe it’s been ten years. In January it will be eighteen years since my mother died. Ten and eighteen years sounds so enormously and unfathomably long…but in some ways it feels like no time has passed at all. The new YA novel… Read more »
NYTBR essay outtakes, Volume 2: Markus Zusak Interview
I was thrilled to interview Markus Zusak, author of The Book Thief, a novel I loved. In this interview he mentions To Kill A Mockingbird and The Catcher in the Rye, two classic novels which were originally published for adults, but are hugely popular among teens. Interestingly, several executives at major publishers told me that… Read more »
NYTBR essay outtakes, Volume 1: Mark Haddon Interview
Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was published in two simultaneous editions in Britian, one for adults and one for young adults. In America, it was almost published as YA–when the book was at auction here, a YA publisher bid on it, but did not win; it was published only… Read more »