Photograph by Matthew Turley.

Matched takes place in a dystopian society that controls who you marry, what you eat, and when you die. But 17-year-old Cassia challenges the established order when she falls for two guys—her state-approved match and someone a computer glitch accidentally reveals. I heard the story was inspired by a high school prom that you and your husband, Scott, chaperoned.

We used to chaperone dances on the weekend for a little bit of extra cash when I was teaching, because public education is so lucrative. We were 22 or 23, and it was fun. Then the next night, we’d use the money and go on a date.

What was the prom like?

It’s a big deal, at least here in Utah. They had this beautiful, old courthouse, which obviously I used as the inspiration for the setting for Matched. They’d literally unroll a red carpet and announce everyone’s names, and the couples would walk down the stairs and the parents would take pictures. It was this really fancy night for everyone. And then in the fall of 2008, Scott and I had this conversation about, well, what if the government could define everything about marriage. Right now, they can define what marriage is, at least legally. But what if they could also choose when you married, who you married, and how you married? I thought that would be a great story—and then that prom came back to my mind. And I thought, what if instead of going to a prom, you found out who you were supposed to marry at a banquet, like the one in Matched, which is kind of like a prom gone really awry.

I heard that both of Cassia’s love interests are based on Scott.

I feel lucky because I’m married to the ultimate Renaissance man. [Laughs] When I met him, we were 18. He was an English teaching major, which is also what I was, and then he went over to the dark side—economics. I was like, What!? [Laughs] But he is this really interesting guy, and he loves reading and writing and creating. He’s very musical, very artistic. He’s also athletic and into numbers. And I thought, I’m just going to put half of him in one guy and half of him in the other. Then the love triangle will be hard for me to write because I’ll like them both, and I hope it will be hard for Cassia to choose, too.

While reading your novel, I couldn’t help thinking of The Giver, Fahrenheit 451, and 1984.

As someone who has taught high school English, I’ve read all of those authors, and I admire them tremendously. There’s a scene that I wrote as an homage to Fahrenheit 451. I’m probably most affected by Orwell. When I was in high school, 1984 was the first dystopian novel that I ever read, and I was just blown away by the whole experience.

Although you’ve written six other books, this is the first that’s been picked up by a major publisher. What’s it like to get a seven-figure advance for your trilogy?

It feels completely unbelievable. I failed miserably to get an agent for my first book, and I told my husband, “This will be successful if I just can get an agent because that’s a step I’ve never been able to take. And even if we can’t sell this book, I’ll still have gone farther than I ever have.” Then when my agent was able to sell it to my dream publisher and editor, it all felt so wonderful. But it’s also just so shocking, like when is someone going to pull the rug out from under us?