Frequently Asked Questions:

These are questions that I am often asked in interviews. Please feel free to use these answers for book reports and class projects. BUT – you must either put things in your own words or use quotation marks when quoting my exact words. Your teacher will appreciate you doing it right!

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Are there really two strange graves in Catawissa, Pennsylvania that inspired your book, The Caged Graves?

Yes, there are! I found out about them when I stumbled across a photograph of a caged grave on the internet while researching ghost stories of the Pocono Mountains. I was fascinated! With the help of my husband (and Google Earth), I pinpointed the location of the cemetery outside Catawissa. It was only an hour away from Jack Frost Mountain, where my family likes to ski, so the next time we went skiing, we drove the long way home by way of the cemetery. Not only did we find the caged grave from the photo, we discovered there were two of them. That’s when I knew I was going to write a book about those graves. One caged grave is weird. Two is a story.

As it turned out, nobody knew the real story behind the graves. The local historical society had a theory. But it’s just a theory. Even the descendants of the families don’t know the details. I’ve been in contact with the great-grandson of the real Ranslow Boone and the wife of the great-great-grand-nephew of Asenath Thomas, and they tell me that whatever happened in 1852, the family didn’t talk about it!

Who’s your favorite character from The Eighth Day?

Of course, I’m very fond of Jax. He’s like a son to me! Evangeline has a special place in my heart, and the Donovan twins were really fun to write about. But I have to admit, my favorite character is Riley. At the beginning of the book, Jax hates Riley, believing him to be a no-good slacker. But when Jax learns about Riley’s past, finds out who he is and how far he’ll go to keep the people under his protection safe, everything changes. Developing their brotherly relationship was one of my favorite parts of writing the series.

Furthermore, Riley invented himself. When I started the first draft of The Eighth Day, I had different plans for this character. But he took control of himself from page one. This is who I am, he told me. Oh, and I need tattoos and a motorcycle, thanks. I know most people think that authors control their characters. Well, sometimes characters control themselves, and a wise author listens to them!

Why did you switch from alternating Evangeline’s perspective with Jax’s in The Eighth Day to alternating Dorian’s perspective with Jax’s in The Inquisitor’s Mark?

In each case, the alternate POV (Point of View) has to be someone who can provide the reader with information Jax doesn’t know – otherwise, there’s no reason to give them POV.  In The Eighth Day, Evangeline gives the reader a glimpse of what life is like trapped in the eighth day. She shares the history of her family and her race, the Kin. Evangeline is the major focus in that book because everything Riley and Jax do revolves around her.

In The Inquisitor’s Mark, Evangeline is still important, but her perspective doesn’t add anything to the story that Jax doesn’t already know. On the other hand, Dorian Ambrose, as a member of Jax’s long-lost family and the Dulac clan, is full of information Jax doesn’t have but the reader needs. In the third book, The Morrigan’s Curse, Jax shares POV with Addie Emrys, Evangeline’s younger sister, because she is the only character who can tell the parts of the story that Jax doesn’t know about.

Your first book, We Hear the Dead, inspired a short film that premiered at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. Does the film do justice to the story you wrote? 

I’m actually impressed at how much of the premise the director and producer were able to convey in a 7 minute film – three sisters running a séance scam, although one of the girls has more paranormal talent than the other two realize. In my book, Maggie and Kate Fox are teenage girls, and the movie portrays them as young women in their twenties. But that was for practical reasons, to avoid hiring minors in the lead roles. Currently, The Spirit Game is being pitched as the premise for a possible television series, with the girls’ ages closer to the characters in my book. Meanwhile, the short film is available to watch for free on YouTube HERE.

When and where were you born?

Ack! The birthday question!

I get a lot of emails asking me this question from students who are trying to complete a school assignment. I wonder why all these teachers want to know my birthday. 😛

Anyway, since a lot of students need this information for their reports, here it is. I was born February 3, 1965 in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

You were a 4th & 5th grade teacher for 25 years. Did your students influence your writing? 

I’ve always shared my writing and publishing experience with my students. Even though my first two books were aimed at an older audience, my students got to hear all about them. When the original title for my first book (High Spirits) was rejected by the publisher, it was one of my fifth grade students who came up with the name We Hear the Dead.

After I wrote The Eighth Day, my first book for their age group – and it was purchased as a series by HarperCollins – my class threatened mutiny if I didn’t read it to them, even though it was only a manuscript at that point. So, I started reading it to them and was thrilled to discover how much they loved the story. They chimed in their own opinions as I worked on revisions for my editor, and I gave them the credit they deserved on the Acknowledgments page.

I’ve sometimes been asked if any of my characters are based on real students. The answer is not exactly … But when I think of Jax’s tousled hair, there is one student who comes to mind. When Billy overuses the word, “Dude!” I think of another student. Some of the snippy comments and sarcastic replies … I heard those when students talked among themselves. I sometimes get asked about a particular part of The Eighth Day, when Jax lies to Riley about something important. People want to know if that’s realistic. And I say, “Do you have any idea how many lies I’ve heard from students over 25 years of teaching? Yes, kids lie to get out of trouble. All the time!”

So lots and lots of students contributed to building the characters in my books, but no one character matches up exactly to any one student.

What advice would you give to teens who like to write?

Read, write, get feedback, and repeat! The only way to get better at something is to practice it – whether it’s playing a musical instrument, a sport, singing, drawing, or writing. Don’t be frustrated when your writing doesn’t turn out the way you envisioned it in your head. You can always revise – and I highly recommend revising your stories because you learn a lot when you change things. But you also have to read what you love. Books are your best writing teachers. While reading books you will learn how to develop characters and plot twists and settings.

Because life isn’t always clear cut, the motives behind people’s actions don’t always make sense. But stories need to follow a logical path. When writing historical fiction, what sorts of decisions have you had to make about historical figures or events in order for your book to work?

This definitely came up a number of times when I was writing the story of the Fox sisters in We Hear the Dead. They did what the historical record says they did, and I had to work with that. I had to provide the motivation behind their actions, even when those actions didn’t make sense. I believed the girls were frauds, but I had to work with witness accounts of their eerily accurate séances. Elisha Kane broke up with Maggie Fox repeatedly, but she always took him back. Why?

In the end, I had to remember that people in the past were not very different than people today. Witnesses lie. Girls believe their boyfriends will change. When faced with something in history that didn’t make sense, I almost always found that human nature provided the solution for me. Because people aren’t logical or perfect.

Why is historical fiction important to read?

For exactly the reasons I stated above! People in the past were the same as people today. It’s important for us to understand that there’s nothing new under the sun – even if we think there is! Long-distance romance? Not new. Boyfriends who won’t commit and businesses that defraud the customers? Not new.

We need historical fiction in order to be less self-centered, to remind ourselves that people who came before us led lives as rich and interesting as our own – as will the people who come after us.

What were your favorite books when you were a teenager?

I loved fantasy, science fiction, and mystery. (Still do.) I read the novelized version of Star Wars a thousand times. (I was in middle school in 1977 when the first Star Wars came out.) I also loved mysteries written by Mary Stewart and Agatha Christie. Roger Zelazny, CJ Cherryh, and Douglas Adams were my favorite science fiction and fantasy authors.

Therefore, I find myself wanting to write the kinds of books that intrigued me as a teen — ones with twisted, hard-to-solve mysteries, spooky settings, heroes who don’t look like heroes and maybe don’t even want to be heroes, but come through in the end. (Like that moment in Star Wars when Han Solo comes back to save the day, even after he said he wouldn’t.)

What inspired you to create an alternate universe full of ghosts for 13-year-old Eleanor Roosevelt in ELEANOR, ALICE, AND THE ROOSEVELT GHOSTS?

The alternate universe came first. I had an idea for an alternate reality where ghosts were real and so prevalent that science had “diagnosed” them into categories: Friendly, Unaware, or Vengeful. First, I wrote a mystery involving these ghosts set in the 1980s. Later, I revised the story to set it in contemporary times. The feedback for both versions was the same: Readers loved the ghosts but not my characters. I put the story aside.

A couple years later, I stumbled across an article about the unruly Alice Roosevelt, daughter of Teddy Roosevelt. I already knew a little about her, but the article kindled my interest. I also knew a great deal about her shy first cousin Eleanor Roosevelt, by virtue of having taught a biography of Eleanor to my fifth graders when I was a teacher. Both girls lost their mothers at a young age — and Eleanor also lost a brother and her father – but rather than bond over their sad tragedies, Alice and Eleanor were like oil and water, with totally opposite personalities. I realized I’d finally found the right protagonists to tackle a dangerously mis-diagnosed ghost in my alternate universe and started a brand new story.

What inspired you to write about dimensional geometry in JADIE IN FIVE DIMENSIONS?

I’ve been fascinated with dimensional geometry ever since I read Flatland (Abbott, 1884) and Sphereland (Burger, 1957) as a middle schooler. In these books, a Square who lives in Flatland, a two-dimensional plane, meets a Sphere from a three-dimensional universe. Together they visit a world of one-dimension called Lineland and a Point who exists in a realm of zero dimensions. Eventually, the Sphere is visited by an Over-Sphere from four-dimensional space. Thanks to these books, I’ve been intrigued almost my whole life by the idea of universes with a different number of spatial directions than ours.

Did you make up the terms ana and kata for the extra dimensions in 4-space?

No, those terms were invented by a mathematician named Charles Howard Hinton in the 1800s to describe the theoretical directions one can move in four-dimensional space, along with the directions we know: up, down, left, right, forward, and backward. In addition to inventing the words ana and kata, Hinton is also responsible for naming a four-dimensional version of a cube a tesseract. That word was famously used by author Madeleine L’Engle in her book A Wrinkle in Time to describe a means to travel instantly through space. But its original use was as a name for a four-dimensional cube.

What was the inspiration for THE CARREFOUR CURSE?

When I was a small child, my mother used to watch a supernatural soap opera called Dark Shadows. I wasn’t supposed to watch along with her … but I did, from behind the couch. This story had everything spooky you could think of: a big, creepy house, dark family secrets, ghosts, vampires, curse, werewolves, and even time travel! I fell in love with all things “gothic” even before I could read — and when I did learn to read and eventually to write, I returned again and again to these themes. THE CARREFOUR CURSE is my love letter to Dark Shadows,

Do you believe in the power of stones?

No. Not really. I mean, probably not. Some people do believe in the power of stones and crystals, and I researched this while writing THE CARREFOUR CURSE. But I’m not a believer. Except that I do have one gemstone necklace that’s supposed to balance the chakra, which I wear for luck and whenever I’m feeling like I need extra confidence. And I do have stones I like to hold in my hand if I’m feeling anxious. So … just a little bit? It’s kind of like ghosts. I don’t really believe in ghosts … except for the one time I heard one. But that’s a whole other story.

Do you have a question that didn’t get answered? Ask me!

Send me an email from my Contact page, and I’ll get back to you. Just remember, if you have a blocked email account, my reply might not reach you. In that case, you can contact me through my Facebook author page or Goodreads.