For those who don’t spend much time around high schoolers, “Duff” is short for “designated ugly fat friend”—what über-hot Wesley Rush calls Bianca Piper as compared to her two beautiful best friends. But in a moment of lapsed judgment, Bianca kisses Wesley, and then the two start surreptitiously hooking up—an escape for Bianca from conflict at home.

Although The Duff contains steamy scenes and a love triangle sure to keep the pages turning, author Kody Keplinger addresses more serious themes, too: body image, alcoholism and the sacrifices of friendship. She also has a knack for writing in an authentic teen voice.

No wonder, considering she wrote The Duff when she was 17 years old. (She is now a 19-year-old student at Ithaca College.)

Keplinger’s youth piqued our interest in this much buzzed-about teen novel, but the quality of her writing compelled us to keep reading and ask the author a few questions.

Bianca eventually comes to the realization that every girl feels like a “label” at some point: prude, tease, ditz, Duff, etc. Do you think this is true?
Oh, yes, I definitely think so. I have never met a girl who didn’t feel labeled as something, even if the label was only in her head. Sometimes there are multiple labels—I’ve felt like the “Duff” so many times, but on top of that I’ve felt like the “party pooper” or the “drama queen,” too. Both because I was called these things and because, at other times, I just convinced myself it was true. I think every girl has been there. Sometimes others label us, and sometimes we label ourselves. It’s sad and frustrating, but I think that’s one thing we all have in common.

A high point in the story is when Bianca and her friends start referring to themselves as Duffs in casual conversation.
I’m a big fan of that scene myself, because it’s something my friends and I actually do now. One of us will say, “Looks like I’m the Duff tonight, but next week, you better let me have the spotlight.” It’s a joke, and having the word reclaimed and reused in a non-hurtful way is so empowering.

I think it’s important for girls to reclaim these labels and turn them into something else for many reasons. One is that by reclaiming the word, it makes it harder for others to use it in a cruel way. “Drama Queen” is a label that was originally meant to be hurtful. Meant for a girl who starts too much drama or is overdramatic. Now, I hear girls use it in other ways, and many girls admit to being “drama queens.” Now it’s a weak insult, so I feel like the phrase has really been reclaimed.

If we take them back for ourselves, the words can’t be used to hurt us anymore. The labels may never go away, but we can change their meanings.

Bianca comes to terms with her various relationships as she’s reading Wuthering Heights. Are teens today interested in classics as well as contemporary YA?
You know, I didn’t even consider that as I was writing The Duff. When I wrote the book, it was for fun, with no idea that it would wind up getting published. But all throughout high school, I was obsessed with the classics. Particularly anything by Jane Austen. So allusions to classics in contemporary fiction always made me smile.

I was taking AP Lit when I wrote The Duff and in that class we read both The Scarlet Letter and Wuthering Heights. I’d read both before, but they meant so much more to me at 17 than they had when I first read them at 14. I worked both of them into The Duff because, if I was reading these books and finally understanding them as a senior, I figured Bianca may be, too.

Also, I’m seeing so many YA books out there right now with allusions to classics. Even Twilight has some classic lit references, so I think some of these famous stories that are commonly read in high school are prime material for the characters in—and readers of—young adult literature to relate to.

One of the major plot points in the novel is a love triangle. Did you know from the beginning who Bianca would end up with? Do you think she made the right choice?
I absolutely did not know who Bianca would end up with. I wrote The Duff without any sort of outline or plan. At first, I just knew that I wanted to have an “enemies with benefits” relationship. I knew that my “Duff” character would be tough and cynical. I hadn’t even planned on a love triangle forming, but my characters surprised me. I wrote blindly, but by the time I was halfway into the book, I knew who Bianca had to choose. Her choice didn’t really shock me—it shocked me more that I hadn’t realized from page one who she would have to choose. Do I think she made the right choice? Absolutely, and I hope readers will agree. (Though, I admit, I do love the other boy involved.)

When did you start working on The Duff? Was it difficult to balance writing with being a full-time student?
I started writing The Duff in January of 2009, when I was halfway through my senior year of high school. Honestly, I didn’t see writing as a challenge with being a student. Probably because I was always writing. I’ve been writing since I can remember—for fun more than anything—so I just knew how to make time for it. Add that in with not having cable or internet at home, and writing became my chief form of entertainment. I did school work, and then spent the rest of my time writing. Usually, I’d write while watching TV—one of our five channels—so I had some background noise. That’s how I do homework, too. So I can honestly say that about half of The Duff was written while I was on my living room floor watching “Gossip Girl.”

Do you think teens are more inclined to read books written by their peers?
You know, I really don’t know. A lot of books I read as a teenager, I had no idea how old the author was. The only book I ever read already knowing the author had been a teen when she wrote it was The Outsiders, and that was a classic in its own right already. Had I known of other teen authors at the time—I say at the time because now I just read everything that comes into my path—I might have jumped on it. But during high school, I didn’t ever look up or see the need to look up an author’s age.

In the end it’s going to depend on how much a reader actually cares about what they are reading. Some readers are the types to research books online or in the library and find out facts like that—I was never one. I just took recommendations from my librarian, and usually info on the author never came up. I think in some cases teens will be more likely to read books by other teens, but in a lot of cases, a teenager may not even know the author is a teenager unless they read the “About the Author.” Everyone is different on how they decide what to read, I think.

Are there any other books or authors that inspired your writing?
I think I was most inspired by Sarah Dessen and Judy Blume. Blume’s honesty and Dessen’s prose were always things I loved. But I drew a lot of inspiration from television and movies, too. I don’t know if I ever would have written The Duff had I not watched “Gossip Girl” obsessively during my senior year—and, um, still. There are a few references to the “Gossip Girl” TV show within the book, even, because it captivated me so much. I knew I wanted to write something that conveyed the tension and chemistry some of those characters had.

I’m reading so much more now, and I continually draw inspiration from new things. Books that make me go “Whoa, I want to know how they did that!” Elizabeth Scott, Simone Elkeles, Stephanie Kuehnert, Carolyn Mackler and Lauren Oliver have really inspired me as of late. I’m reading their books obsessively and hoping that one day my writing will be as enthralling.

What are you working on now?
I’m working on a few things! I find my problem is that I have too many ideas and not enough time to write them—which is actually saying something because I do tend to write first drafts pretty fast. But I’ll have another book out in Fall 2011. It hasn’t been titled yet, and I don’t want to give anything away, but it takes place in the same town that The Duff took place in, as many of my newer projects do. I just can’t seem to leave Hamilton High School behind.

Jennifer Donnelly’s 2003 young adult novel, A Northern Light, told the true story of Grace Brown’s 1906 murder from the point of view of fictional Mattie Gokey. By intertwining the two young women’s stories, Donnelly created a complex and emotionally resonant tale that won critical accolades, several awards (including a Michael L. Printz Honor and the UK’s Carnegie Medal) and, most importantly, the adoration of legions of readers. Now she returns with Revolution, a story that again explores the connection between two young women—this time across the span of hundreds of years. Using the French Revolution as a historical backdrop, Donnelly brings together Andi, a 21st-century teenager grieving the death of her brother, and Alexandrine, who was a companion to the last dauphin of France.

In an interview with BookPage, Donnelly gives us some insight into her characters, the artists that inspire her and the tragic true story at the heart of Revolution.

It’s been seven years since the publication of your first young adult novel, A Northern Light. In the meantime, you’ve published two adult novels. Why return to YA now?
Ha! You flatter me extremely by assuming any professional decision I’ve ever made has been thought out. I’m driven very much by ideas that grab hold of me and won’t let go, and characters who take up residence in my head and won’t leave until I’ve gotten their stories down. The problem is, those characters don’t always willingly relinquish their stories. It takes a great deal of time to understand people like Andi and Alex, the main characters in Revolution, and to do them justice.

Andi is a complicated and, at times, not particularly likable heroine. Was she a challenging character to write?
She was challenging to write. Not because she’s not likable—I happen to like her very much—but because she is in such great pain and I very much felt her pain. She’s also a thousand times cooler than I am, and probably wouldn’t hang out with me if I hadn’t created her, so I kind of had to rise to that.

Both Andi and Alexandrine have vivid, lively voices. How did you go about creating distinctive, believable voices for these two girls living hundreds of years and thousands of miles apart?
Thank you. That’s a huge compliment. They just came, these girls. I realize that’s kind of a lame answer, but I don’t know how to explain it any better. Andi and I sat in the same room together for years and got to know each other quite well. Alex was walking down a cobbled Paris street and turned and beckoned to me, and I followed.

What drew you to writing about the French Revolution?
A story I read in the New York Times about 10 years ago: “Geneticists’ Latest Probe: The Heart of the Dauphin.” It showed a picture of a glass urn with a small human heart in it. The article said that the heart, which had been kept in the Basilica of St. Denis, in Paris, had just undergone DNA testing and had been found to be the heart of Louis-Charles, the lost king of France, the youngest son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

The article explained that after the execution of the king, Louis Charles was taken from his mother—at the age of eight—to be re-educated in the ways of the revolution. The child was brutalized, and as threats to the revolution grew, he was locked away in solitary confinement. He was kept in terrible conditions, grew ill, lost his mind and eventually died—at the age of 10.

I was horrified and moved to tears by this. I wondered how the idealism of the revolution—Liberty, Fraternity and Equality; the best, most noble human aspirations—devolved into such cruelty. I wondered what kind of world allowed it, and still allows it. And I wondered how are we supposed to live in such a world. I was very tortured by these questions and needed an answer, so I set about trying to get one the only way I know how—by writing a story.

Is it difficult, when writing a historical novel, to balance truth and fiction?
It’s not so difficult to balance the two. As Robespierre said, history is fiction. Ask three people for an account of an event, and you’ll get three different accounts. What Andi, and the reader, gets is Alex’s account. She exists within a factual historical timeline, of course, and must conform to it, but her thoughts and opinions on what is happening during that timeline are entirely her own. She, like her uncle, is not so thrilled by the Revolution. She’s not inspired. She’s pissed off. The revolution is going to make her free, yes . . . but free to do what? Free to go back to Paris and starve after she’s been living well at Versailles?

What kind of research did you do for this book?
I did a great deal of academic research—reading Schama and Carlyle and many other historians of the Revolution, for example. Looking up old maps in Paris archives to reconstruct the streets my characters walked down. Reading texts of letters from prisoners condemned to the guillotine. Viewing as much art and as many artifacts from the period as I could.

I also did a lot of non-academic research. I visited Paris and sat in the courtyard of the Palais-Royal at night, hoping for a glimpse of Orleans’ ghost. I tooled around in the catacombs. Went to Versailles. Spent time in grocery stores and market stalls. I sat by the Seine and in cafes and parks and at the Louvre, and watched Parisians for hours, studying their faces and gestures, observing the way they eat and talk, absorbing the attitude.

Did any of your own ideas about the Revolution change after researching it?
I would say that many of my political ideas hardened. The violence and bloodshed of the Revolution is staggering to me, and after studying the rise and fall of the various revolutionary factions, particularly Robespierre and the Jacobins, I believe more strongly than ever that power corrupts and that often those who most want power are the ones who should least have it.

I also grew to have sympathy for Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. They were foolish and callous rulers. They made dreadful mistakes and refused to learn from them—and ultimately paid very dearly for them. The price wasn’t loss of power and wealth, or even their lives. The price was going to the guillotine knowing that their defenseless children were in the hands of brutal, ruthless people, and that they could do nothing to protect them.

For readers who are inspired to learn more about the French Revolution, where would you recommend they go next?
I would start out with Simon Schama’s most excellent Citizens and Thomas Carlyle’s The French Revolution: A History. If you’ve got some time on your hands, that is. Mark Steel’s Vive la Revolution: A Stand-up History of the French Revolution, is a quicker read, and a whole lot funnier.

Music plays a huge role in the novel. Do you listen to music for inspiration or while you write?
Music inspires me greatly. I listen for inspiration, and comfort, and to be astonished and delighted. While I was working on Revolution, I listened to Segovia, Radiohead, Beethoven, the Beatles, Nada Surf, Pink Floyd, the Decemberists, Mozart, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bach, Led Zeppelin, Lou Reed and many more.

Andi’s new Parisian friend is clearly named after Dante’s guide to the underworld, the poet Virgil, and parts of the novel are named after sections of The Divine Comedy. Did that poem inform the book in other ways?
The Divine Comedy is one of my favorite poems. Dante is depressed, and on the verge of ending it all, and then along comes Virgil, the writer he most admires, and says, “Come on, Dante, man up. We’re going on a road trip. We’re going to get you out of this.” I mean, imagine it . . . you’re at your lowest point and the artist you most admire takes you by the hand and leads you through Hell, and when you come out, you can “rebehold the stars.” Amazing. I wanted Andi—led into the underworld by her own Virgil—to travel on much the same journey. For better or worse, I went along with them; getting this book written was at times an emotionally crushing experience. But like Andi and Dante before her, when it was over, I could finally once again see the stars.

I love the idea of reaching back to our artistic ancestors, like Dante and Virgil, for help and comfort and guidance. I’ve been sustained by the work of other writers my entire life. Andi is sustained by generations of musicians, stretching from Johnny Greenwood all the way back to Malherbeau. If there’s one thing I really want to get across to readers, especially teenage readers, it’s that this priceless legacy—be it music, or paintings, or books—exists. And it exists for you. If things are bad, reach for it, hold on to it, and let it carry you.

In last year’s The Monstrumologist, Rick Yancey introduced readers to a terrifying world much like our own, where monsters are not only real but also the subject of scientific study. Now the adventures of Dr. Pellinore Warthrop and his young ward, Will Henry, continue in The Curse of the Wendigo. Readers who couldn’t put down The Monstrumologist—or who couldn’t sleep after finishing it—will not be disappointed in Yancey’s follow-up, which serves up at least as much blood and guts as its predecessor.

After tracking him for days across a frozen wasteland, following a trail of destruction, entrails and eyeballs, BookPage caught up with Rick Yancey long enough to ask him a few questions about the appeal of horror, the line between fact and fiction—and what really scares him.

What inspired you to mix real science and history with myth and legend in this series? More than once I had to stop and separate fact from fiction, then doubted my own memory as to what was “real.”
The tension between fact and fiction is wholly intentional and meant to create a sense of unease in the reader. This harkens back to our childhood: What is that noise under my bed? What was that shadow in the closet? The sound and sight were real phenomena—and our overactive imaginations fill in the cause. The Monstrumologist is history with a single element altered: that monsters are indeed real biological organisms with a singular defining characteristic: They want to eat us. So I must be “true” to history while also staying true to that one conceit. It is lovely to hear I was successful, at least with one reader.

You indicated that a lot of research and fact-checking went into this book. How important was it to have so much “reality” in what is (hopefully) a work of fiction?
It’s a work of fiction. I swear. Please believe me. It is fiction. Sleep well tonight.

In The Curse of the Wendigo, I was relieved to see Dr. Warthrop begin to think more kindly of Will. Then I was relieved of that relief when he went right back to screaming at him. Will that push and pull in their relationship continue to evolve over time?
It would be pretty boring if it didn’t! Life depends on evolution and I certainly don’t intend to have their relationship rotting away like a corpse. Nothing is more boring than a book or series with static relationships; it’s like watching paint dry. Now I understand there are some books that actually play to this and writers who make a lot of money by “creating” cookie-cutter plots and stock characters, and even publishers who support their businesses with the equivalent of fast food: bland, generic and utterly predictable. Let’s face it, when you order your Quarter Pounder, you know it’s going to taste exactly the same as your Quarter Pounder from last week.

It’s interesting that “Rick Yancey” is kind of the über-narrator of this whole story. Why did you choose to enter the narrative?
The first reason has to do with the blurring of fact and fiction. The second probably has to do with my ego, which is about the size of the solar system (including Pluto).

Do you have a planned endpoint for the series? And will there come a point when you’ve run out of places to stick an eyeball for maximum gross-out? Seriously, though, how do you keep the gore fresh?
I would be happy to continue the series as long as the publisher would be happy to have me continue. After all, Will Henry lived to the ripe old age of 131, so the potential is there for dozens of stories. As for the gore . . . this isn’t butterfly collecting—this is hunting down horrifying, nightmarish creatures that depend upon our meat for their survival. I think you have to show what this means. As a reader, I would feel cheated if that basic premise was not explored to its fullest.

On that note, some of the scenes in this book were not just incredibly gross, but shocking, too. You already have a terrific mystery and very scary story—what prompted you to top those off with such terrifying tableaux?
Why do we cover our eyes in scary movies only to peek through our fingers? That’s what I’m doing as a writer—peeking through my fingers.

Why do we still love to be “safely” scared by books or movies?
Boy, I don’t know. I saw Paranormal Activity and didn’t sleep well for days. I kept waking up expecting to see my wife hovering over me with a death-stare. I really don’t care much for horror films, though I admire films like The Exorcist and Silence of the Lambs, but I admire them for elements other than the scary parts—acting, writing, direction. I went through a Stephen King phase in my 20s but haven’t picked up a book of his since. Never read Lovecraft, which is funny, since a lot of readers compared The Monstrumologist to his work.

Do you think that love of horror is, on some level, a “guy thing”? Who do you consider the audience for these books to be?
I don’t think the horror genre is a guy thing. Fear is a human thing. It’s practically the first emotion we have. It’s merciful, in a sense, that we cannot remember the utter horror of being ejected from our mothers’ wombs into a cold, brutally bright world so alien to anything we’ve experienced. The series is marketed to young adults, but based on feedback I’ve received, as many adults as teens have read the books. When I write, I don’t consider the age of my audience, beyond assuming they are old enough to read. I try to be true to the characters and, since I write in the first person, to a particular character’s voice. I purposefully don’t “dumb it down” in consideration of how the publisher has chosen to market the books.

What scared the living daylights out of you when you were the age of your readers? Did it influence the ways you build suspense and set scenes in this series?
My biggest fear (then and now): social situations. In my teens, I worked part-time at a cattle ranch, and working with farm animals often plunges you elbow-deep into some pretty disgusting things. I became acquainted with the stench of decay early. When people ask this question, I always think back to when I was 10 or 11 and had a terrible nightmare in which some huge, hulking, faceless shadow was chasing me . . . it couldn’t find me, but I knew in my dream it was only a matter of time until it did and then I could be assured it was going to rip me limb from limb. That dream stayed with me and is probably the germ for The Monstrumologist.

What makes this a “teen” novel? Stephen King is shelved in adult fiction, but these books are both scarier and grosser than many of his. (Wait, did I answer my own question?)
The line between YA and “adult” grows more blurry by the day. What is it that separates them? A young protagonist? Content? The “message?” I don’t really know, and maybe you have answered your own question. Thanks for the comparison to King, though, which I will take as a compliment.

Read our review of The Curse of the Wendigo.

Tim Tharp didn’t start out writing novels for teens. But after visiting book clubs to talk about his first book, Falling Dark (winner of the Milkweed National Fiction Prize), he says, “I had such a good time talking to high school students about it, I thought, I’m going to write a novel for them.”

The idea stuck—and it’s been working well, to say the least. His debut YA novel, Knights of the Hill Country, was named to the ALA Best Books of 2007 list. His second, The Spectacular Now, was a 2008 National Book Award finalist and has been optioned for a movie.

His newest, BADD, is a creative and moving exploration of what happens when a young soldier named Bobby returns home from war, no longer able to relate to the life—or self—he’d left behind.

Bobby always was a rebellious sort, a charming risk-taker whose antics inspired the book’s title, as explained by narrator Ceejay, Bobby’s adoring younger sister: “He was wild and he was B-A-D-D, BADD.”  Things got worse when he stole a car; that’s when he had to choose between the army or jail.

But after several tours of duty, he’s finally coming home, and Ceejay is unbearably excited, not least because of her big plan: They’ll move in together, get jobs and escape their small town. She plans to surprise Bobby with the idea, but is herself surprised when she sees him in town—which can’t be right, because that’d mean he was home early, and didn’t tell her he was coming.

Soon, a lot of things don’t seem right to Ceejay, who’s already frustrated from her arguments with Captain Crazy, a wildly eccentric local man whose anti-war protests make her angry and defensive. Then there are her parents—her unfailing perky mom, and her dad, who doesn’t understand anything, least of all her.

The inspiration for BADD was drawn from a mix of old and new influences, Tharp says from his home outside Oklahoma City. “It was partially inspired by what’s going on in our country right now, but it was also a story idea I’d had in mind for years. This one was going to be a post-World War I novel.”

The idea morphed into something different when some of his students at a local community college began coming back from Iraq. “A few of them had post-traumatic stress disorder. . . . I started thinking that was something important to take a look at,” he recalls.

Tharp took an additional layer of care with an already delicate subject because “the suburb I live in is an Air Force town. There is that feeling of wanting to do them justice.”

In fact, the author’s father was a WWII veteran who told Tharp stories about his experiences. “I always thought having the perspective of a young person on a returning soldier would be interesting,” he says. “But really, the driving force was to investigate different aspects of courage, besides just facing physical violence like you see in movies.”

That off-the-field courage is a quality Ceejay possesses, though she doesn’t know it at first. She’s occupied with her confusion and hurt at the changes in her brother, who, to her shock, starts spending time with Captain Crazy. And her mother’s perkiness, at first annoying, reveals itself to be something else entirely: a choice to remain upbeat, no matter what—itself a type of strength.

“Ceejay has to rely on different kinds of courage, like perseverance and standing up behind someone you love. The kind she draws upon is something I think women have more access to than men, who are supposed to put on a tough act,” Tharp says. “Ceejay starts looking around and realizes she’s more like the women in her family than she thought she was.”

That’s a challenging emotional journey for people of any age, but Tharp said it doesn’t occur to him to shy away from what some might view as heavy topics for a YA book. “I grew up hearing those war stories from my dad, and both my parents died of cancer. I’ve gone through those kinds of battles myself, so I drew upon them.”

After all, he adds, “Kids do go through these kinds of things. I think it’d be good for them to have a book, so if they’re going through something, they see the characters are, too. . . And a lot of kids read adult novels. Why not bring that complexity to the YA novel itself?”

It’s the very complexity of BADD that makes it such a memorable read; amid the struggle and catharsis are humor, beauty, wonder and hope. Tharp says it wasn’t an easy book to write: “It was kind of draining, but satisfying at the same time, like doing a good physical workout.”

Turning the last page of BADD is sure to leave readers feeling the same—a little worn out, a lot more clear-eyed and suffused with the glow that comes from knowing they’ve just finished something important.

The compelling, complex heroine of Chime, Franny Billingsley’s eagerly awaited new romantic fantasy for teens, is haunted by remorse.

“I’ve confessed to everything and I’d like to be hanged,” declares Briony Larkin in the book’s opening line. And she means it. She’s not only guilty—she’s wicked.

Briony is convinced that this is the truth of who and what she is. The real truths—of her emotions and the events of the past—are secrets, buried so deeply that there is only one thing that drives her to tell her story: She is on trial as a witch and about to be hanged.

Well, there might be something else. Possibly, just possibly, she might be in love.

Seventeen-year-old Briony Larkin and her developmentally disabled twin sister Rose, whom Briony has always felt responsible for, are the daughters of a clergyman. They are also the stepdaughters of a stepmother who has recently killed herself, three years after telling our heroine that she—Briony—is a witch: “If I wasn’t a witch, she asked, how else was it that I had the second sight?”

Billingsley didn’t start out writing about witches, though.

“At first I thought it would be a changeling story set on the moors, but after five years I gave that up,” Billingsley says in an interview.

The current setting is a swamp, inspired loosely by the Fenlands of England. The time is 1910, when traditional folk beliefs were coming into conflict with the ever-advancing industrial revolution.

“The swamp becomes a character in the story,” notes Billingsley. Indeed, the swamp is a dangerous force for Briony and the village. It is also under siege: An engineer named Mr. Clayborne has arrived from London to drain the swamp, to improve life in the Swampsea. Progress will create more farmland, make room for the railroad and perhaps even get rid of the dreaded swamp cough. And that’s not the only change Mr. Clayborne is bringing; his 22-year-old son, Eldric, with “golden lion’s eyes and a great mane of tawny hair,” has also arrived from London, and he is determined to uncover Briony’s secrets.

Billingsley, an inveterate reader as a child, spent one childhood summer in England, and the memories of the folk tales she read during that time have always stayed with her. Some of the creatures that haunt Briony’s world, such as the Boggy Mun, are based on the traditional folklore of the Fenlands.

“I read a lot of fantasy as a child,” says Billingsley, whose two previous books for young readers are the acclaimed fantasies Well-Wished and The Folk Keeper. “I think one is often moved to write the kind of books one most loved,” she says.

Billingsley tries to keep a regular daily writing schedule in her Chicago home, where she lives with her husband and two children. She turned to writing after an unfulfilling career as a lawyer and has now become a popular lecturer and teacher as well. She is on the faculty of the Vermont College of Fine Arts, where she teaches in the MFA program, Writing for Children and Adults, and has been called “one of the great prose stylists of the field.”

In Chime, Billingsley has created a character with one foot in the ancient world of magic and another in the early 20th century. But Briony’s struggles to uncover family secrets and find her true identity make her a heroine sure to appeal to 21st-century readers.

“We as writers are digging below the surface of things, and family secrets are especially fascinating,” Billingsley explains. “At the same time, I think Briony in an exaggerated way has the same feelings as many high school girls—she is unsure about herself, and she is searching for her identity. I think these aspects, and her voice, will draw in readers.”

As it happens, finding Briony’s voice was the most exciting aspect of writing Chime, which took Billingsley 12 years. It’s not often that writers have the perseverance to stick with a story for more than a decade, but Billingsley’s patience was rewarded when her character finally began to take shape.

“At one point I was worried that I might never write a novel again,” says Billingsley. “But then Briony’s voice came alive. I had found my character!”

Billingsley’s choice of words is apt; the heroine of this multilayered fantasy is a character who will remain alive in readers’ imaginations for a long time.
 

Fans of Ellen Hopkins and Patricia McCormick will enjoy Exposed by Kimberly Marcus, a debut novel written in free verse. Marcus investigates what happens when a girl—a passionate photographer—is torn between her brother and her best friend after a terrible accusation.

BookPage caught up with Marcus to find out why she wrote in free verse, which book she thinks is a must-read and what she’s working on next.

Describe your book in one sentence.
Exposed is the story of Liz Grayson, a high school senior and budding photographer who is forced to turn the lens toward herself when she is caught between people she loves.

Your novel is written in free verse. Why did you choose to write in this format?
I first discovered free verse when reading Sonya Sones’ fabulous novel Stop Pretending, and I was impressed with her ability to say so much in so few words. Exposed, however, started out in prose. At one point in its writing, I became stuck on a scene. A friend, who knew my love of poetry, suggested I try recreating the scene in free verse as an exercise to get unstuck. It worked, helping me to create a snapshot of emotion, so I decided to write the whole book that way.

Your main character is a photographer—are you, as well? Who or what is your favorite subject to photograph?
When I was young my father was a photographer. I have always loved photography as an art form, but I am not a photographer myself. To research Liz’s passion, I was lucky enough to be able to shadow a darkroom photography class at my local high school over the course of a school year. I learned things as I thought she might have, though she’s far more talented than I am!

How has your career as a clinical social worker informed your writing?
As a therapist, I came into the writing of Exposed with a knowledge of the effects of trauma. However, I have vivid memories of questioning myself and how I fit into different social situations during my teenage years. I think these memories, more so than my clinical background, informed my writing in Exposed.

What's the best thing about writing for young people?
I think the best thing about writing for young people is the young people I write for!

Name one book you think everyone should read.
That’s a hard question to answer! If I can limit my response to another teen novel that deals with the effects of trauma, I’d like to point to The Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin. It’s an important book, and one that has stuck with me in the years since I’ve read it.

Can you give us any hints about your next project?
My next book to hit the shelves is a picture book coming out in April from GP Putnam’s Son’s, called Scritch-Scratch a Perfect Match. It’s a rhyming romp, illustrated by Mike Lester, about how a flea brings a lonely dog and a lonely man together. My next novel, with Random House, is still in the writing phase. It’s called From Here on Out, and deals with a tough girl forced to navigate her way through a tough situation. Stay tuned!

The Mortal Instruments series has been a blockbuster success—generating three bestsellers, attracting thousands of fans around the world and inspiring a movie adaptation now in the works. But for author Cassandra Clare, the whirlwind of attention and acclaim has come as a complete surprise.

“Everything having to do with [the series’] success is unexpected to me,” Clare says by phone from a retreat in Mexico, where she’s spending a month away from the wintry weather in New York and devoting herself to writing.

A former journalist who worked for several entertainment magazines, Clare moved to New York City in 2004 and began writing the book that would launch her phenomenal urban fantasy series for teens. Originally conceived as a trilogy, The Mortal Instruments debuted with City of Bones in 2007, landing on the bestseller lists and winning several awards (including an American Library Association Teens’ Top Ten Award). Clare’s next two novels, City of Ashes (2008) and City of Glass (2009), garnered just as much positive reaction and even more sales.

On April 5, Mortal Instruments fans will be treated to another thrilling installment—City of Fallen Angels. The fourth entry in the series promises love, blood, betrayal and revenge— not to mention more time with Clary, Simon, Jace and the other characters who keep readers coming back for more.

“Part of what’s gratifying is that the series has been very successful around the world,” Clare says. “It’s been translated into 35 languages now, and I receive more and more communication from people all over the world. I get to travel to places I’ve never been—Italy and Poland and Germany and Australia and New Zealand.”

The series is set in New York City’s Downworld, a place filled with werewolves, vampires and faeries, where 15-year-old Clary is reluctantly at the center of the action. Clary learns that not only is she a Shadowhunter—a demon killer—but she may be the key to destroying rogue Shadowhunter Valentine. As she is drawn into the hunt, her companions include the handsome Shadowhunter Jace and her best friend Simon, a vampire.

Looking back on the series’ beginnings, Clare says the setting was a crucial part of the story. “I had just moved to New York City from Los Angeles, and I knew that I wanted New York City to be the setting, and I wanted it to be almost like a character in the book. My vision going into it was a trilogy loosely structured on Dante’s Inferno,” she says.

Considering her taste for the epic, Clare’s choice of Dante’s 14th-century poem for inspiration isn’t surprising. “I love Jane Austen, I love the Brontës. I love anything epic and gothic and thrilling,” she says.

Clare’s pen name comes from “The Beautiful Cassandra,” a Jane Austen short story. “Jane Austen is my favorite writer, and that’s why I picked the name Cassandra—and also because it’s not just a short story; it’s a short story she wrote when she was 13 or 14 years old, so it’s her teenage work.” Her love for Austen is clearly reflected in her own writing, and one of her current projects is “a non-fantasy, realistic updating of Pride and Prejudice.”

For now, though, the focus is on City of Fallen Angels, which readers are breathlessly awaiting. The contents of the upcoming book are a closely guarded secret, but Clare has some advice for fans when they finally dive into the new book:

“For those who are close readers, when you are reading City of Fallen Angels, you should look out for characters that have appeared in the prequel series before,” she says. “If you have read Clockwork Angel, they’ll pop out at you, and that’s a lot of fun.”

Clockwork Angel, which was released in 2010, is the first entry in The Infernal Devices series, a prequel to The Mortal Instruments.

“I’m pretty compulsive, especially because I’m now writing two series at once, so I outline everything, and I know everything that’s going to happen ahead of time,” Clare explains. “Alternating books keeps me from getting tired of the characters. I write one book in The Mortal Instruments and then one book in The Infernal Devices.”

Writing two series at once has kept the characters fresh, she says. “When I was done with City of Glass, I thought, oh, God, I never want to look at these [characters] again. But after I turned in Clockwork Angel, by then I missed those characters.” Her fans are not at all tired of her characters, and they anxiously await not only the April release of City of Fallen Angels, but the future releases of City of Lost Souls and City of Heavenly Fire, which are expected to mark the end of The Mortal Instruments series.

Fans will also eventually get the chance to see The Mortal Instruments characters on the silver screen. A film adaptation is in production, with actress Lily Collins cast in the role of Clary, and much speculation regarding potential actors to play Jace. So far, Clare has been impressed with the film producers’ interest in her opinions, although she says she has no influence over casting decisions. “I grew up in Hollywood. My grandfather was a movie producer,” says Clare, so the filmmaking process is not exactly a mystery to her. And she’s definitely looking forward to seeing her characters brought to life in cinematic form by director Scott Stewart.

Though Clare may find her success unexpected, her star is still rising. It’s safe to say that whatever her gothic-loving mind dreams up next will be devoured by avid young (and not-so-young) readers the world over.

Being 17 and in love can be glorious, but what if the object of your affection is a fallen angel? And you’re both beset by an ancient curse? No wonder Lucinda “Luce” Price spends a lot of her time feeling confused and frustrated in Passion, the latest installment in the Fallen series by Lauren Kate.

If fan enthusiasm and sales figures are any indication, readers will thrill at re-entering the dark, dramatic world Kate has created, all the better to cheer on their beloved Luce as she sets out on a quest for clarity, safety and love. The first two books in the series, Fallen and Torment, were New York Times bestsellers, and Kate routinely gets eager crowds at book signings here and abroad.

In an interview from her home in Laurel Canyon, California, Kate says it was at her very first signing that a reader uttered the “best question [she’d] ever been asked.” The author recalled, “I read this really frustrating, annoying fight scene between [the characters], and their special love isn’t really visible if you read the scene alone. But an 11-year-old girl came up to me afterward—she waited until everyone was gone, and then asked quietly, ‘Do you really think a love that beautiful exists in the world?’ ” 

“It was amazing,” Kate recalls. “That she could see into it, and was open enough to imagine what lay beyond those pages, was really cool.” And yes, the author adds, “I do believe in that love very strongly. When Fallen came out, I’d been married for three months.” 

Nearly two years later, even Kate’s husband sometimes gets to feel the affection of fans: “We went to the Philippines for a book signing, and there was a long line. People went up to him, saying, ‘I’ll never get to the front, can I just take a picture with you?’” 

Kate’s belief in a “magical connection that’s gorgeous and attainable” resonates in her voice when she talks about her husband—and her characters, Luce and Daniel, who in Passion demonstrate their willingness to take all manner of risks in service of being together. 

In Fallen, Luce finds herself in reform school in Savannah, Georgia, where she meets Daniel and his friends, “and realizes she’s been swept up in a longstanding curse,” Kate says. Luce parts from Daniel and goes to California in Torment; “it’s a growing-pains book, an awakening book that prepares her for the excitement of discovering her past.”

And discover it, she does: In Passion, the boundaries of the U.S.—not to mention time and space—are roundly broken when Luce travels from Kentucky to England to China to Israel to Egypt, and from 2009 to the 1700s to 3100 BCE, among other locations and centuries. She and her friends (and enemies?) do so by way of Announcers, shadowy supernatural entities that serve as unusually swift, albeit unpredictable, modes of transportation. 

Luce’s and Daniel’s quest to understand and break the anti-love curse makes for an exciting pace, with plenty of surprises and humor to balance the agony and fear the two experience as they jump through time. They never know where they’ll surface (the bathtub? A war zone? The edge of a cliff?). Then there’s Bill the helpful gargoyle, who does a fabulous job as Luce’s stylist (he specializes in “un-Anachronizing”). Is he as nice as he seems?

Another big question: Is it the curse that’s keeping them apart, or is there some larger message about love between an angel and a mortal, and connections between the heavenly and the earthly? Such matters first pinged on Kate’s writerly radar in graduate school, when she took a course in the Bible as literature.

“I was kind of at a wall with another romance novel I was working on. It was just about these two people, and was insular in a confining way. I wanted to do something that would implicate a lot more people, even the entire world,” she says. 

References to angels in biblical texts piqued her interest, and she began to have regular conversations with her professor, who made a statement that became a turning point for the author. “I was struggling as I read different texts, with all these discrepancies [about angels]. I asked her what to do, and she smirked and said, what do you think Milton did? Just pick what’s relevant to you and the story—you’ll never find definitive answers for reasons that defy explanation.”

And with that, Kate’s writing took off. “It empowered me to say, this is my story. I will do research and pick the pieces that fit,” she says. 

One way of doing that: layers of references to other books she’s loved and learned from, particularly novels. For example, in preparation for writing about Milan, Kate read A Farewell to Arms; for Moscow, The Master and Margarita; and for 1600s London, she turned to her Shakespeare-scholar husband (he’s pursing a Ph.D. in poetry). “It was fun to look back and realize these incredible novels I already love are set in time periods I could explore in Passion, and my husband is probably one of my best readers.”

He’ll soon have more work to do, because Kate is in the midst of writing Rapture, the final book in the series (due out in 2012). Just as Passion elevates the series onto an even more dramatic and exciting plane, Rapture represents yet another new frontier. 

“At the beginning of the series, I wondered—am I going to go there, and have Lucifer and God be characters? It’s challenging . . . it feels strange to imagine your own version of heaven and put it on paper. And the godly force, the physical reality of God, I’m working on that. It’s a very delicate balance, still.”

There’s one area in which Kate is unwavering: She loves writing about 17-year-old girls. “That age is very inspiring to me. To be 17 holds so much gravity, so much possibility. So many fraught situations are going to be inevitable at that age, that liminal place between girlhood and adulthood.” 

It’s a time her readers know, or remember, well. And they’ll be happy to hear that Kate has no plans to shift her focus:  “I can see myself writing about this age forever.”

The creepiest and oldest of legends have a way of prickling the spine and turning dark nights into the haunted unknown. In The Near Witch, the debut YA novel by Victoria Schwab, ancient ghost stories are the same as truth.

Lexi Harris lives in the village of Near, a place where the wind seems to speak and children are told the story of the Near Witch, who died long ago in the moors. It is a lonely place where strangers never venture—until one night, someone is spotted disappearing into the shadows. Lexi goes in search of the stranger, only to find a mysterious boy with a singed cloak and eyes the color of coal. Almost simultaneously, the children of Near begin to go missing, plucked from their beds without a trace. Lexi, with the help of the stranger, Cole, goes in search of the truth and the missing children, only to find that some legends have yet to be put to rest.

What drew you to a ghost story set in the moors?

I’ve always loved fairy tales, but the setting in many of my favorites was barely sketched out, little more than a strange gray space in which the characters moved. That absence of place helped make the stories timeless, but when I decided to try my hand at one, I wanted to have a true setting. More than that, I wanted to make the setting its own character, while still maintaining a timeless quality. The moors were a perfect place to start because they are vast and old and have at once so much character and yet when you’re on them, it’s easy to forget the year, the century. They are magical, in the old way, an elemental way, all fog and wind and wild earth. I knew they’d be the perfect place for Near.

There is no one cut-and-dried villain in The Near Witch; instead, danger comes from the townspeople’s fear, anger and confusion. Did you intend to write a book without a singular evil character? What effect do you think that has on the story?

Classically, fairy tales have a very clear source of good, and a very clear source of evil. I wanted to change that.

Most definitely. I don’t believe in absolute good and absolute evil, and similarly, I don’t believe in a total villain, because in most cases, villains are people, and people are complex, a product of their culture and their wants and fears, strengths and weaknesses. And, classically, fairy tales have a very clear source of good, and a very clear source of evil. I wanted to change that. I think the lack of one, single villain (you can argue there are none, or several) helps make the situation in Near more real. I like a healthy dose of realism in the middle of my magic.

Lexi’s relationship with her little sister Wren is even stronger than her connection to Cole. Why is this sisterhood so important in The Near Witch?

Truth be told, Wren started out as a very minor character, but over the story’s evolution, it became apparent that Lexi’s attachment to her sister would be her attachment to Near. Wren is the reason Lexi would never sever ties. Wren is her investment in Near, protecting Wren her biggest motivator and losing Wren her biggest fear. Wren keeps her from blindly trusting Cole, because she has a direct investment in the disappearances. Instead, Lexi must go in search of truth.

As a child, did you ever believe in witches or ghost stories?

I still do believe in one of them. I won’t tell you which 😉 But in all sincerity, I’m the kind of person that gives magic the benefit of the doubt.

Is there any myth or fairy tale that you wish were true?

Haha, well, most of the original fairy tales were pretty dark, so I wouldn’t wish them into being, but I would like a little more magic in the world, in some form.

What stories were your greatest influences in crafting the tale of The Near Witch?

I grew up with Silverstein and Grimm, and between the two language and lore both became incredibly important to me. I joke that growing up, I literally thought in rhyme, and would have to break it up before I spoke, so people wouldn’t think I was crazy. By the time I started writing, I thought in rhythm and fable and nested tales, the kind with stories tucked one within another.

Lexi Harris is one tough girl in a town where she isn’t always appreciated. How did you come up with her character, and did you have any particular goals in writing about her?

Her character was actually the very last part of the book I created. First came the stories told in the town, which then helped me understand the town itself, and then its residents and their attitudes/mindsets, and finally Lexi came in reaction to those mindsets. Cole might be the stranger, but she is an outsider in her own world.

Who is your favorite heroine in literature, and why?

Fire in Kristin Cashore’s Fire is one of my favorites. She is fierce and powerful, other and yet magnificent.

What do you hope readers will take from your story?

A want for more? But truthfully, I don’t have an answer for that. I hope people come TO the story with as little notion as possible. Notions get one into trouble 😉

What are you working on next?

My next project is called The Archived. I shouldn’t say too much about it yet, but I will say this: It’s kind of like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” meets The Shining meets If I Stay. In a library.

Best-selling YA author Maureen Johnson doesn’t believe in ghosts. In fact, when people try to tell her a ghost story—even a good one—she just isn’t interested. So it seems a bit ironic that her new novel can best be described as, well, a very clever ghost story. 

On a transatlantic phone call from her second home in Guildford, England (she splits her time between New York City and Guildford, where her English boyfriend lives), Johnson explains how she got the idea for her latest book, The Name of the Star. “I was in London doing some research for [my previous novel] The Last Little Blue Envelope on a historical tour. They kept mentioning ghosts, and I kept thinking, ‘These ghosts are not very good at what they do.’ The ghost is always a cold spot in the room or a shadow; it moves a spoon, or a door creaks. And I thought, what you should have is a ghost that comes back and it’s totally insane and kills everyone! Now that would be something! Then I would sit up and listen to your ghost story.” 

Johnson considered what kind of person you really wouldn’t want to come back from the dead—and almost immediately she thought of Jack the Ripper, the infamous serial killer who terrorized London in the late 1880s. Once she had her idea, Johnson was off and running. 

The first novel in a planned trilogy, The Name of the Star is inventive, fast-paced and compelling. We meet plucky Louisiana teen Aurora “Rory” Deveaux as she arrives at Wexford, an elite boarding school in London. There has been disturbing news of a local murder, but Rory is too consumed with adjusting to life at Wexford to focus on the slaying. She quickly makes friends with her roommate, Jazza, and starts a flirtation with Jerome, one of the class prefects. Things seem to be going well for Rory—until another woman turns up dead behind a local pub, and police fear they have a Jack the Ripper copycat on their hands. 

Johnson says the historical material surrounding the Ripper crimes provided the obvious structure for her story. “I wanted the book to be heavier on the school stuff in the beginning so you would think it was going to be more of a school story,” she explains. “I wanted Rory to get taken out of that world, that you have some idea that her life had been normal—and now it isn’t.”

Normality ends for Rory on the night she sees a suspicious man in the Wexford quad hours before another murder takes place nearby—a man no one else saw. With the guidance of a mysterious new roommate, Rory realizes that she has the ability to see ghosts, and that she just might be the ghost killer’s next victim. Luckily Rory isn’t alone in her struggle—she learns there is a secret ghost police force tracking the killer along with the London police, but she certainly can’t admit that to any of her friends. And so Rory goes from being a typical high school student to a teen on the run from what she thought she knew about herself, the world and the dark forces working against her.

To say much more would ruin the fun of reading Johnson’s spooky novel, but teen readers with an interest in history, mystery and supernatural stories will find much to savor in The Name of the Star. 

Johnson says she wanted Rory to come from a town near New Orleans because the Crescent City “has a long history of very eccentric behavior.” With a laugh, she explains, “Some of the most interesting people I have ever met come from New Orleans. And I wanted Rory to have an interesting background. Her family is loosely based on my own family and neighbors, except I think that mine are probably weirder. So Rory is in many ways a filter for me to talk about my relatives.” 

Whether she’s channeling her own relatives or not, what’s most striking about Johnson’s writing is her ability to completely inhabit her characters’ voices. Rory, Jazza, Jerome and their friends leap off the page, and readers will be continuously surprised and entertained by their misadventures. About writing from the teen perspective, Johnson admits, “It’s not that I have a particularly teenage mindset. The only thing I do is try to think, what would this be like if you haven’t done it before? The main thing that’s different about being a teenager is that you’re experiencing a lot of things for the first time—that’s the most important logic.”

When asked what Rory will experience in the second book, slated for release in fall 2012, Johnson will only say, “Rory is having to cope with the aftermath of all the things that happened to her. Sometimes in supernatural stories you don’t give people enough time to have the complete nervous breakdown. So she’s in therapy, but she can’t talk about what really happened, so therapy’s a joke. Rory has a complicated life. And things are going to get more complicated.”

Luckily, complications—in Johnson’s capable and creative hands—are something to eagerly anticipate.

More with Maureen Johnson:

The first two installments of Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl’s wildly popular Beautiful Creatures series introduced a group of extraordinary teenagers in small-town Gatlin, South Carolina. Ethan (a mortal), his Caster girlfriend and their friends have faced death, rebirth, uncontrollable changes in magical powers and the ultimate choices between good and evil.

In Beautiful Chaos, the third book of this paranormal Southern Gothic series, their past actions have led to an even greater evil. Gatlin is ground zero for the end of the world, and Ethan and his friends race against time to challenge fate—all while juggling school dances and tricky love triangles.

What drew you to setting this Gothic paranormal romance in the South? What is it about South Carolina that sparked the story?
Margaret: The South, particularly the Low Country setting of our book, seems like a place where magic could still happen.

Kami: My family is from a small town in North Carolina, and my family experiences and stories inspire my writing.

As co-authors, do each of you bring different talents to the writing process? Why are two heads better than one?
Margaret: Our Beautiful Creatures novels come out of our conversations. We love to sit and brainstorm together, though we go off separately to write.

Kami: Our process is so collaborative, and often the best ideas come from combining of our ideas together.

If you could become any of the creatures in the Beautiful Creatures series, what would you choose and why?
Margaret: I’d be Link, and go to New York City and make it big with my band, the Holy Rollers. He just really enjoys his life, no matter what a moron he may seem like.

Kami: I would love to be Ridley, and kick up some trouble in Exile or another Caster club.

Beautiful Creatures is currently being adapted into a movie. What is most exciting about the prospect of seeing the world you created come to life?
Margaret: Bringing the book to more readers. Sharing the book with the filmmakers—who are really gifted—and getting their perspective on the Caster world, as well as our own.

Kami: I can’t wait to see the world we created, somewhere outside of our minds.

The Smart Chicks Kick It Tour wrapped up in early October. What does it mean to be a Smart Chick to you?
Margaret: All of those women are people I loved to read long before the tour existed. There is truly a special mood at every stop on this tour, and we were honored to share it with our readers.

Kami: Melissa Marr and Kelley Armstrong, the tour organizers, decided to call it the Smart Chicks tour because they wanted to include authors whose novels feature strong female protagonists.  It’s amazing to be included among them.

What is your biggest superstition?
Margaret: I save things. I can’t throw anything away, it’s like I have to carry a piece of all my memories through my life, like Lena Duchannes’ necklace.

Kami: I’m like Amma.  I have too many superstitions to count.  I won’t sleep in a room with a 13 on the door, I fly with a special necklace full of charms, and I would never knowingly step on someone’s grave.

As a paranormal author, what is your favorite part about Halloween?
Margaret: The costumes. And the general suspension of belief—like everyone is willing to believe in anything, just for one night.

Kami: The eerie atmosphere is my favorite part, and the mythology that Halloween is the night when the veil between the living and the dead is the thinnest.