Being a parent teaches you many things, none more so than these two sageries: long, difficult tasks do not get any easier with age, and problems rarely go away by themselves.
Growing up with undiagnosed and untreated anxiety—let’s call it what it is, mental illness—was what led me to write the main character in my debut middle grade horror, The Clackity, as a young girl with anxiety
One day last summer two surprises arrived—one in my inbox and one by snail mail. The first was an email with the beautiful cover art for my verse novel THE NAME SHE GAVE ME. The second was my original birth certificate, which I also saw for the first time.
This book is my proudest accomplishment, and I hope that young, marginalized, underrepresented teens of the future who look like me won’t have to travel the world just to see themselves in a story.
My parents often apologize to me for my childhood because they imagine it must have been a tough time—especially since, for them, that period was one of hardship. But the childhood they believe I had differs vastly from the one that exists in my memory.