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What's one thing that makes
you different?
I am not kidding when I tell
you I have the world's greatest b.s.
detector. So do all my fictional heroines.
Read and learn, my friends. Read and learn.
What's your fave movie or
TV show of all time and why?
What?? No way I can zero in
on just one. There are the sit-com classics
I grew up with (Bewitched, etcetera), all
the Star Treks (my all-time fave being Star
Trek: Next Generation--when I grow up I want
to be Deanna Troi), current faves like The
Simpsons and Gilmore Girls (and please let
us take a moment to mourn the late, great
Joan of Arcadia), all the fab fashion and
home dec shows (Stacey and Clinton on What
Not to Wear should be Queen and King of the
World), and, of course, the reality shows.
(American Idol and Craft Corner Deathmatch
are my current top two.)
Who's your favorite teen
author?
Louise Rennison. Absolutely
hilarious. She makes comedy look
effortless. I sort of hate her.
What did you do before you
became a writer and why is being a writer
better?
I was a fiction editor.
Writing is better because I can do it at
home in my pajamas and not have to be
social, i.e. pretend to enjoy company-wide
sports and spirit days. Working at a big
company is like going back to high school.
And who in their right mind would want to do
that when there are other options available?
How do you know so much
about teens?
I live with one. Soon, two.
I am also still abnormally fixated on my own
nightmarish teen years. As well, I am
shamefully addicted to Teen Vogue, and only
watch teen-oriented TV shows. (See question
#2, in which I cite The Simpsons and Gilmore
Girls as current faves.)
If you could have any job
in the world, what would it be?
Sounds dorky, but I already
have the best job in the world. (All
together now--awww!) Here's the thing: why
settle for a "job in the world" when you can
create whole new worlds of your own?
Where do you get the ideas
for your books?
Anywhere and everywhere.
Listening to my kids and their friends (mwahaha),
newspaper articles--you name it. Virtually
anything can trigger an idea. Contrary to
popular belief, coming up with ideas is not
the hard part of writing. Developing those
ideas into full-fledged books is what's
hard.
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Bev’s writing career began at Carleton University in Ottawa, where she studied journalism, but she quickly decided that fictional people were more interesting than real ones. (Especially politicians—ugh.) After slogging her way through Chaucer and Shakespeare to obtain an Honors English degree at the University of Toronto, Bev worked as a fiction editor for a few years, then started seriously thinking about writing a novel herself. After genre bouncing for a while, Bev decided YA was her forté. Bev particularly enjoys writing books about cryonically preserved teens, teens mysteriously living days over, etcetera. She suspects her odd protagonists are outgrowths of her own traumatic high school days as a semi-mute bookworm, but she is afraid if she starts going to therapy to explore this hypothesis, she will be there for the rest of her life. Writing about freaks is much more time-efficient, not to mention cheaper.