Q: What is your writing process? How did you get to know Hattie and Adam and the other characters?

A: I do a lot of outlining before I begin writing any book. First I usually write a few paragraphs about the story, just a general idea that I can discuss with my editor. Then I think about the characters and begin writing sketches of each of the main ones. After that I begin to flesh out the story, and eventually I write a long, detailed outline of what will happen in each chapter. I use this outline as a roadmap when I write. I don’t always stick to it, but it’s there to help me along, so I know what will happen and how I’ll get from the beginning to the end.

Hattie and the other characters are mostly made up, and I got to know them while I was sketching them out. I often use real-life details to make my characters come to life, but the characters are usually fictional. Adam, however, was loosely based on my own uncle Stephen, my mother’s younger brother, who like Adam was mentally ill. I never met Stephen, though, so even Adam is mostly fictional, although I did include some details about Stephen that I heard when I was growing up.

Q: Can you comment on any particular scenes in the book and how you created them?

A: For me, one of the most vivid scenes is at the very beginning of the book when Hattie is watching her home movies. I wanted to establish a strong sense of “place” here — of Hattie’s home and the people who share it with her, and of her town. I was hoping that the description of the house, when it is quiet and when Hattie has at least the downstairs to herself, would allow for an intimate portrait of the house, which I felt was almost as much a character in the book as the people were.

Another scene I like is the one in which Hattie meets Adam for the first time, when she and her parents go to Hattie’s grandparents’ house for dinner. I wanted the scene in the living room, when drinks are served before supper, to establish Adam and his parents for the reader. In particular, I wanted Adam’s words to convey both his childishness and his unusual wisdom.

Q: Adam is inspired by the uncle Stephen you never knew; is Hattie anything like you as an 11-year-old?

A: Hattie and I are similar in many ways. As a child, I was shy like Hattie, and I did get along with grown-ups at least as well as I got along with kids. Also, like Hattie, I had few friends, but the ones I had were very close. My best friend when I was growing up, Beth, is still one of my best friends. Also, like Hattie, I grew up with an artist father, although my dad didn’t work at home. He did, however, really make the two animated movies described in the book, and now I have copies of them on videotape. And he was an avid chronicler of our family with his 16 mm movie camera. The town I grew up in, Princeton, NJ, wasn’t as small as Hattie’s town, though, and none of my grandparents lived close by. That part of the story is made up.

Q: Why did you set this novel in the 1960s and include so many ’60s cultural references? What is special about that time, and what did you hope readers today would get out of it?

A: For some reason, I have been very drawn to the 1960s lately. Belle Teal is set in the ’60s, and so is my most recent novel, Here Today. I was four when the 1960s began, and fourteen when that decade ended, so it was an important chunk of my childhood, and I have vivid memories of that time. I have to admit that I was thinking more of myself when I chose to write about that decade than I was of my readers, but I hope they’ll enjoy reading about this period of time, which was important to me personally, as well as a decade of radical and essential cultural change.

Q: How old were you when President Kennedy was shot? What do you remember from your own experience that day?

A: I was eight and in third grade when Kennedy was shot. I remember that our teachers got the news just before school ended that day. Some of the teachers told their students what had happened, and I remember that this was the first time any of us had seen our teachers cry. My teacher, Miss Kushel, chose not to tell my classmates what had happened, but I found out before I got home that day by listening to some of the “big kids” who were walking home ahead of my sister and me. By the time we arrived home the TV was on, and our mother was watching the news. It seemed to me that the TV stayed on nonstop until Monday when Kennedy’s funeral was held. It was a sad and scary time.

Q: Why is I Love Lucy the show Adam memorizes?

A: I Love Lucy was one of my favorite shows when I was growing up, and now as an adult, I can safely say that it is hands-down my favorite TV show ever. I thought it might appeal to Adam because of its kooky humor. Also, it was a show that even in the 1960s was on TV so often that Adam might well have memorized all the episodes.

Q: Why do you remember so well what it's like to be 11 years old?

A: I’m not sure I know why I remember so well, just that I do — that I have vivid memories of my childhood, and that I draw on them when I write. Also, my mother kept diaries for me when I was growing up. I have those diaries now, and they are helpful in providing details when my memory does fail me.

Q: What is the space in which you write like? Do you always write in the same place?

A: I can write almost anywhere as long as I have my computer with me, and as long as it is absolutely silent. I’m easily distracted, so I can’t write with other people around, or even with music playing. I have two assistants who help me with a couple of small foundations that I started, and they work in the office in my house. When they’re here, I write in the dining room, which is as far away from the office as I can get! Unfortunately, the dining room faces into our backyard where I can see deer, turkeys, and sometimes even bear. The animals can be just as distracting as voices or music!

Q: What are you working on now?

A: Speaking of animals, I’m just finishing up a book that is very different from anything I’ve written. It’s the autobiography of a stray dog, and is loosely based on my own dog Sadie. Sadie wasn’t a stray, but her mother was. Her mother was rescued and given a home shortly before Sadie and her brothers and sisters were born, but I often wonder what Sadie’s life would have been like if she had been born in the wild, and that’s where the idea for the new book came from.