After graduation, I wanted to work for 'Sassy', which I loved, but it had folded. So I wound up at 'Seventeen' for three years on staff and two as a contributor, and I wrote these great stories that nobody ever believes 'Seventeen' does. Serious stories for teens about social justice issues - gun control, migrant farm workers.
Gayle Forman
I wasn't one of those kids who grew up wanting to write or who read a particular book and thought: 'I want to do that!' I always told stories and wrote them down, but I never thought writing was a career path, even though, clearly, someone was writing the books and newspapers and magazines.
Many of depression's symptoms - exhaustion, insomnia, nausea, headaches, weight loss, weight gain - are physical ailments.
In order that people who suffer from depression seek treatment without a second thought, the stigmas must further fall until we reach a point in time when that person with leukemia and that person with depression both receive the same level of sympathy and the same level of rigorous treatment. Both people deserve it.
I wrote my first novel when my daughter was about six months old.
I love being a mom. But there's a certain kind of tedium to your life when your kid is young. Writing allows you to wander when your kid is napping in a crib ten feet away. So that's the great joy of writing fiction for me.
'Twilight' is a breathlessly addictive read with a love story that sucks people in.
I think traveling made me who I am. When I was 16, I was an exchange student in England, and that was the year that I kind of feel like I was on the road going one direction in life, and it just kind of shifted me over, and I finished high school, and I went traveling for three more years instead of going to college.
I don't know if I actually am good at the sight of blood. An accident on the street gets me very, very upset.
It's not that we like sad movies that make us feel like, 'Oh, my God, what a bummer.' We like emotionally moving experiences. It's nothing new. It's catharsis. It goes back to the Greeks.
So, I guess motherhood and the threat of not being able to pay my rent inspired me to be a novelist. But as far as what inspired me to be a writer, it's the stories. It sounds very cliched, but the stories rise up and demand to be told. They always have done, long before I became a writer.
We like movies and books that give us this emotionally moving experience, where you feel like a slightly different person, and you see the world a little different after you finish. It lets you see your own life in a different way, and it actually makes you feel really good.
I think every teenager feels like a Martian in something, whether it's in their family, I think, or in their school. I think every teenager, every human being has a sense that they don't belong somewhere.
People have told me that they cannot put down 'If I Stay' after reading it, and readers have become very invested in the love story between Adam and Mia.
I don't think I tell stories of tragedy. I think I tell stories of love. Even though you're full of tears, I hope that you leave the theatre with your heart feeling like it's going to explode out of your chest. And yes, you've been through the tragedy, but it's ultimately hope that I think you're left with.
I didn't even start college until I was 21.
When I was really young, I wanted to grow up and be the sun. Which shows an early penchant for ambition or narcissism or grandiosity or delusion - all of which are bellwethers for becoming a writer.
As an author, I really hate a reader like me. There's no loyalty.
Oftentimes when you see adaptations of books you like, you're let down. As an author, you assume that they are going to suck. A little bit of hope is dangerous.
A good fight scene is really a good love scene.
Most writers have no idea how to make a film. It's a totally different skill set. Nor is it just to translate exactly what's on the page directly on to the screen - because that would be terrible. It would be five hours long, and the structure would be a mess. But the writers know the characters and the story.
People often call 'If I Stay' my baby novel, and I have to correct them. It's not my first book. It's just the first one anybody paid attention to.
My first YA novel, not many people have read. It's a fickle business. There's a degree of timing and luck involved.
John Green was on the set of 'The Fault In Our Stars' the entire time, which is amazing! Wouldn't you want John Green on set the entire time?
I have written a picture book that is based on my daughters. You know, my youngest one likes to tell everybody, 'Mommy wrote 'Best Day Ever' about us.' Which is true.
As we get older, we tend to think it is less OK to be vulnerable and to feel what we feel. It's kind of bull. We all still feel things pretty deeply. It just becomes less socially acceptable to express that.
I like to relate to my kids as they are. I enjoy spending that time with them. I see that my girls are so completely different and different from me, too.
Most of us have days or weeks or months so awful, we wish we'd never been born.
If the spectrum linking everyday depression to Major Depression sometimes hinders understanding of it, it also offers an opportunity for empathy. Because almost everyone, at some point, experiences feelings of sadness, of hopelessness, of emptiness, not to mention lethargy and irritability.
I think the phrase that resonates from 'Just One Year' is something I sort of live by: 'The truth and its opposite are flip sides of the same coin.'
I can't pretend to be a teenager, but I feel like I never really stopped being a teenager.
My husband is a former rocker and in charge of our humungous music collection, and I've recently been asking him for classical music.
I will go running when I'm stressed out. The running helps, but more than anything, I'll put music on and then I'll run. I'll cry and get it all out.
I don't have a lot of men in my life. I'm married, but I have daughters. I'm surrounded by a lot of females in my world.
Experience has shown me that standing by oneself reading from one's book isn't especially compelling - unless you're David Sedaris.
I've found that the most engaging and satisfying author events I've done are with other people, where the conversation is spontaneous. I think that is by far the better way to introduce and promote a book.
