I know I'm writing better now than I ever did for adults because I'm writing for an audience who know that they don't know everything.

I learned to be a regional writer by reading people like Flannery O'Connor. She was a huge influence.

My work explores the frontier between rationalism and superstition and the wavering boundary between the two.

The sounds and rhythms of words are really important to me.

Themes around education and learning run through my work.

It's always been the case that politicians want different things from children than good educators do. Good educators want imaginative, exploratory beings, but politicians just want economic units.