Resources for students
I love hearing from my readers. I wish I had time to answer each and every question people sent me personally, but there are also those pesky new books to write. Sometimes I end up pointing people to previous interviews I've done. Here's a list of those, which you might find handy, particularly if you are a student writing a paper about my books. (With the White Pine nomination for The Scorpion Rules, this is happening more and more.)
This list isn't meant to be comprehensive -- it's just what turns up in an hour or so of Googling. But it's a place to start. I hope it's a help to you. I'd still love to get a note!
About The Scorpion Rules, The Swan Riders, and the Prisoners of Peace world generally
A Backward Story: How the Scorpion Rules got started, where I got the idea of hostages, and what I think of real-world AI, among other things.
Between Two Lockers at Forever Young Adult: A big chunky Scorpion Rules interview, including what it has to do with my own childhood in a nuclear shadow. Lots of stuff here.
Such a Novel Idea: Another where I got my ideas story, this one with the "this used to be an Aztec book" answer, and the question about what my physics background has to do with anything.
Novel Ink: Among other things, this one has the origin of the character names for Greta, Da-Xia, Elián, and Talis.
The Book Shire: A big list of questions and a bunch of short snappy answers about The Scorpion Rules and The Swan Riders.
My own blog-post on what's Canadian about my Saskatechewan-set book
Tumblr Ask: Why Elian is in the books
Tumblr Ask: The economy of The Scorpion Rules world
Earlier interviews
The Book Wars: This one covers my first two novels only but has my best answer for "why are your books so dark."
The Enchanted Inkpot: Mostly Sorrow's Knot, with my best answer to "how to you balance research and writing"
Write On! Another early interviews, covering the origin story of Plain Kate, and featuring my thoughts on finding your voice as a writer.