Baby’s first book circuit!

I’ve done interviews with The Dartmouth, The Concord Monitor, and The Valley News

I have to say, I think my favorite part of The Concord Monitor interview is that I’m quoted as saying “It’s crunch time,” a statement I feel like I’ve never stopped saying, and probably never will.

Also, I’m beyond flattered that my former professor and mentor and current friend Dr. Brenda Silver described Invictus as “an extraordinary work for a 15-year-old, both in terms of its linguistic sophistication and its sense of how narrative works.” I signed a copy for her, the first book I signed (excepting the copies I signed for Appa to show off at work).

Also, this interview may be the only print mention of the spectacularly failed novel I wrote when I was 11: a behemoth of about 400+ pages that I unwisely sent unsolicited and without an agent to Tor Books. The thing was riddled with plot holes and cliches and what have you, but I received a kind, two-page rejection letter that explained what needed fixing and encouraged me to keep writing.

At the time, of course, I believed that the chief editor himself had actually written it (“Look, Amma, it’s signed in blue ink! It’s real!”), but now that I’m older and wiser, I know that it was probably an assistant who will never see this blog post. Still, I want to say thank you to that assistant who, circa 1994, was compassionate enough to write a whole two pages of gentle feedback and encouragement for a kid who needed to hear it.