A few years back, my husband and I went to a Boston Ballet performance of The Nutcracker. Behind us sat a mother and her five-year-old son, who was deeply psyched to be there, wriggling and fidgeting with glee. As soon…
Rather than shy away from hot-button issues, YA fiction tends to do the opposite and embrace them. Why not? Young people aren’t afraid to deal with Uncomfortable Truths and Difficult Conversations. Some of the best, most cutting-edge YA books deal…
I wanted to see the movie, Genius, because it was about Maxwell Perkins, the famed editor of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. But it is really about Perkins’ relationship with Thomas Wolfe, who I’m embarrassed to say, I had…
My fellow Dead Darlings contributor and site editor, Cara Wood, sent along these questions in anticipation of the launch of my debut novel, Cottonmouths, on June 6, 2017. Echoing the work of authors like Daniel Woodrell and Sarah Waters, Cottonmouths is an unflinching story about the ways in…
There was a time in my mid-twenties when I contemplated creating a t-shirt that read, “If you can’t be a good example, serve as a terrible warning.” On the back it would say, “Terrible Warning.” Things were not good. My…
My oldest brothers are twins. One of them is named after my father, the first and middle names swapped because my father decided he did not want a junior. James is named after the song, “Sweet Baby James.” Because my…