Frequently Asked Questions

What kinds of books did you read as a teenager, and what do you read now?

Laura: I read all the time as a teenager. Reading about adolescence was so much easier than living it in person. I suppose I was looking for a how-to guide. I thus read everything Judy Blume and Paula Danziger wrote, and because my parents were great readers I also read Thomas Hardy, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald on my own. Thomas Hardy is still the sentimental favorite, but I tend now to read novels set in other countries or in immigrant communities, most recently The Namesake (Jhumpa Lahiri), Brick Lane (Monica Ali), The Hungry Tide (Amitav Ghosh), and The Language of Baklava (Diana Abu-Jaber). If you want to read something great and contemporary, try Julian Barnes, Alice McDermott, William Trevor, Laurie Colwin, and Tobias Wolff. Want more suggestions? I've made a list of all the books I feel are essential reading on my blog: http://postcardstothevoid.blogspot.com/ (See the entry for December 3, 2009.) Or just write to me. I love talking about books.

Tom: I’ve always been a demon reader, but as a teenager, I was sidetracked by sports and buddies and my generally unrequited yearnings for girls. During that period, I did read and love Great Expectations, To Kill a Mockingbird and A Separate Peace, but I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t read an actual young adult book until Laura and I had begun writing one. The book I read then was The Chocolate War, which, as they say, knocked my socks off and made me understand that writing for this genre was a more-than-respectable thing to do. Lately I’ve read and loved two of Dana Reinhardt’s books—A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life and Harmless—and Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, which is everything a book in any genre ought to be—engaging, inventive, and morally substantial.

How do you write together?
When will your next book be published, and what's it about?
Do you divide up the characters by gender, with Tom writing the boys and Laura writing the girls?
Will there be a sequel to Crooked?
Where do you write?
Which ideas tend to come first—the characters that populate your books, or the storylines that drive them?
Do you see characters’ faces as you write?
Is the paper from Ms. Hekkity’s shop (in The Decoding of Lana Morris) truly magical, or are the events following the drawings merely coincidences?
How often do you revise?
What kinds of books did you read as a teenager, and what do you read now?

How do you write together?

When will your next book be published, and what's it about?

Do you divide up the characters by gender, with Tom writing the boys and Laura writing the girls?

Will there be a sequel to Crooked?

Where do you write?

Which ideas tend to come first—the characters that populate your books, or the storylines that drive them?

Do you see characters’ faces as you write?

Is the paper from Ms. Hekkity’s shop (in The Decoding of Lana Morris) truly magical, or are the events following the drawings merely coincidences?

How often do you revise?

What kinds of books did you read as a teenager, and what do you read now?