I’m a young adult writer & work-at-Starbucks mom juggling life with a 2 year old, and I love it. When I’m not writing, I’m scraping avocado off my jeans, chasing a soccer ball, or getting reacquainted with Thomas the Tank Engine and The Velveteen Rabbit.

What? You still want to know more about me? All right then, here it goes:

I’m happily married to the almost-but-not-quite superhero, Physics Man.

I have a gorgeous baby boy (his name is Mir, and he already has his own, infrequently updated blog here).

As you can tell, I’m a writer. I freelance a lot; in my (not-so-much) spare time, I write flash fiction, short fiction, and work on my young adult novel.

What’s the novel about?

Ask me again when it’s finished. I might know by then.

What’s the difference between young adult writing & adult writing?

A lot. A little. There’s a lot of crossover between YA and adult literature–you might have noticed some titles, like The Book Thief (Marcus Zusak) and The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman) appear as both YA and adult, but with different covers.

I think the major difference is simple–YA has to appeal to teens, while adult lit has to appeal to adults. It’s a simple audience breakdown. But there are a few, more subtle differences, too. While it’s okay for YA books to tackle issues (Sarah Dessen’s Dreamland is all about domestic/relationship violence, and Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak is about the consequences of a rape), they can’t rely on gratuitous sex, violence, or language. Young adults are also much more likely to call an author on stories that don’t make sense, voice that doesn’t feel authentic, and a host of other writerly pitfalls. This means that YA writing has to be strong in every possible sense–a challenge, but a pretty worthy one, don’t you think?

Why do I write YA?

Honestly–I don’t know. From the time I first started putting words to paper (i.e. when I learned how a pencil worked) I’ve written about young people. I thought I’d grow out of it at some stage–until I discovered I didn’t want to. YA gives me much more to explore, and takes away the whole “literature” thing I find so intimidating (hence *Insert Literary Blog Name Here*). YA requires such strong, authentic writing that I don’t think there really is a trashy, genre fic subset, or a literary one. It’s all just good story telling.