L.J. Smith on “When you’re writing a book and making up characters, do you feel like you become that character, as well as that character becomes a part of you?”  Oh, absolutely! I hope they don’t take me away in a straitjacket for answering this, but when I have a particularly dramatic scene and I’m really into the book, I act it out, playing all the various parts. (I only do this when there’s nobody else in the house.) That’s how I get some of my best lines from both heroines and villains. At the time of creating the scene I am the heroine or villain. Read More.

The amazing Stacy from Girls in the Stacks was nice enough to send me some of The Vampire Diaries books for the students in my classroom to read because they love the series. In fact, if I had been doing Stolen Saturday at the beginning of the year, I would've had several TVD awols to mention. Anyway, I put these books from on the shelf even though it was nearing the end of the year. After all, I'd stopped letting students take books home, so surely they would be safe until next year. Read More.