 I’m the author of the young adult novels Skin, Sight, The Exile of Gigi Lane and Burnout.
I live and write in Brooklyn, New York with my family. We live in an apartment that’s so long my kids pick up a ton of speed riding a scooter from one end to the other. But it’s so skinny that if more than two members of the family try to pass each other in the hall there’s a traffic jam.
I haven’t always lived in New York. For a long time, I ping-ponged my way across the country, moving back and forth between Massachusetts and California a whole bunch of times, first with my mom and dad and brother, and then on my own.
Before I lived here in Brooklyn, I lived in a big house with friends in Northampton, MA. It seemed like there was always a band practicing in the basement, a vegan potluck in the den, and friends sleeping on our couch. We swam in rivers and did art projects. And before I lived in that good house, I lived in a tiny studio apartment in Los Angeles, where I moved after college. My bed was in the closet and I spent a lot of time being unemployed and hanging out at the skate shop around the corner.
And before that I was in college in Massachusetts, which at first involved full-moon drum circles in the woods, hand-made dresses over corduroy pants, Dead Shows, and Rainbow Gatherings. Then later it involved tattoos and shaving my head and milk-crates full of vinyl. I was trying myself on to see what fit, I think.
But before college there was high school in Massachusetts, which involved bonfires, running from the cops (bonfires + conservation land = RUN FOR IT!), and waiting waiting waiting for my life to start.
And before that there was Junior High, which was lots of Girl Scout meetings, loneliness, slumber party drama, and loving River Phoenix. And before junior high in Massachusetts, there was being a little girl on a mountain in California, where there were lizards and only four inches between the treetops and the clear blue top of the world. And before being a little girl in California, I was an even littler girl in Massachusetts, where I was born.
Through everything the one constant has been a love for story. Growing up writing was my shelter, my hope, my secret, and my light in the dark. Being able to share my stories with readers is amazing, and absolutely a dream come true.
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