1. What is the working title of your next book(s)?
I am currently revising a draft of my first chapter book, tentatively titled The House on Oak Street. This title will change, it's more of a place holder right now until the right title sparks.
2. Where did the book idea come from for the book?
I've always loved animal stories and stories about friendship; this book is both. Once the characters formed in my head, the story sort of flowed out of their relationships with each other as I wrote about them. I am not usually the writer that says "the story wrote itself!" (I can't imagine that happening *and* my work being any good) but this might have been similar in that the ideas came when I needed them.
3. What
genre does your book fall into? It is a young chapter book.
4. What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?
Five friends live in an apartment building together teach eachother about friendship.
5. Who is publishing your book?
Alfred A. Knopf Books
6. How long did it take you to write the first draft?
Before I conceived of the idea for the book, I wrote one of the chapters as a picture book, maybe 3 or 4 years ago. When I came back to it in 2011, shortly after my daughter was born, I realized it was part of a larger story, and began writing other chapters around it. In total that first draft took about a year to complete, but I was also part-time at home with my daughter.
7. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
I would love if it were compared to The Wind in the Willows or Winnie-the-Pooh, thought it is a very different book from both. Still, I took inspiration from the cozy worlds of both books, and the way the characters learn deeper truths about themselves through everyday events.
8. What else about the book might pique the reader's interest?
It is going to be heavily illustrated, with illustrations on nearly every page, and a lot of fun for young readers! It will be in bookstores spring of 2015.
