If, perchance, you have run across a blog in the burbling trenches of social media on the subject of raising happy teens, and when you read it wanted to: a) Cry b) Throw your computer / phone across the room c) Laugh in a superior, snarky, and derisive manner d) Take a month-long nap I’m… (I forgot to mention in my previous post that I did, in fact, attempt to write another book before embarking on HONEYSUCKLE GIRLS. It was a second romantic comedy, less romantic and less comedic than the first, if you can believe it. To spare myself another round of agonizing rejections, I slammed it into a drawer where… I have a novel coming out April 26 (BURYING THE HONEYSUCKLE GIRLS, available today for pre-order on Amazon! Yay, buy it! But only if you want! But buy it! Yay!). Because of the impending publication, I’ve been waxing nostalgic in abnormal amounts. This is unusual for me. Being present and in the moment is not… There are two things we all know you don’t talk about if you don’t want to start a fight—politics and religion. I have succeeded in finding a third. Capri pants. Yesterday I mentioned on Facebook that I felt the need to blog about capris (and how I thought their time had probably passed). I got… Hester Prynn of The Scarlet Letter: Keep losing the A. Every time the townsfolk or church board or whoever order you to make another A, lose that one too. When they confront you, laugh and laugh and say you’re such an airhead, you’d lose your head if it wasn’t attached. See to it that every… In the early ‘90s, I lived in Manhattan and worked at CBS in the Daytime Programming department. My cubicle was just down the hall from the casting department, which made the work day really interesting. I used to love to stroll past the waiting room and ogle all the actors who were pacing around, running… Greetings everyone. I’d like to confess that I’ve just surfaced from my own personal Requiem for a Dream / Trainspotting experience which was caused by an innocent attempt to alleviate severe fall allergies. I took a daily cocktail of Claritin-D and Nasacort for two beautiful, yet nightmarish, weeks. I’d like to share what happened. My… I’ve seen WHAT LIES BENEATH a dozen times, at least. You know it — the ghost story/thriller that stars Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford and, I mean, do I really have to say SPOILER ALERT (I mean, am I really expected to keep secrets about a movie that you haven’t bothered to see for 14… Thank you, Becky Albertalli, who tagged me in this writing process blog tour. Becky’s a fellow Atlantan, a friend and writer of the debut YA novel SIMON VS. THE HOMO SAPIENS AGENDA, scheduled to release from Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins in April of 2015. I haven’t read it yet, but I’m really looking forward to getting… I grew up in a super-conservative religious tradition which taught me that GOD WAS IN CONTROL. The good the bad and the ugly—it was hammered into us lil folk that He was orchestrating it all. You didn’t make the cheerleading squad? The Almighty’s handiwork—all part of his inscrutable master plan. Your boyfriend broke up with you? Yeah,…