I am also aspiring to be a writer. Seeing as I am only twelve, I have a long way to go.
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-Emily
Frequently Asked Questions
Will Dairy Queen be a movie? >> Can I be in it? >>
Is D.J. Schwenk based on real life? >> Is she based on you? >>
Where did you grow up? Did you write as a kid?
I really want to be a writer. How do I do it? >>
Are you going to write another D.J. book after Front and Center? >>
What’s your birthday and where were you born?
A Virgo, I was born in the mid 1960s in Charleston, South Carolina, though sadly my parents moved before I had time to absorb the accent. For reasons of Internet security I don’t provide more information than this.
For answers to many other questions, please visit my interviews page as well as specific interviews and Q&A on:
The interviews with Hougton Mifflin, my publisher, are particularly informative. Pretty much everything you want to know is answered there.
I also have questions for reading groups and mother-daughter book clubs on Dairy Queen, The Off Season and Princess Ben.
Censorship
I am not an attorney, and I’m certainly not a free speech expert. As a parent, I’d be the first to agree that kids these days are exposed to tons of material that’s inappropriate or downright indecent, and I’ve been known to question what my own children read in school.
But censorship is different. Censorship is the effort of parents — or librarians, school board members or other officials, but usually parents — to remove a questionable book so that no one, whatever their age, their studies or their families’ own views, can read it. Dairy Queen and The Off Season have been banned from public school libraries because they “promote homosexuality.” I find this appalling. Writing about a subject that touches the lives of millions of Americans does not “promote” it: what disturbed these librarians was the fact I acknowledged that homosexuality exists at all.
These censors – and others who have criticized Dairy Queen’s profanity, and D.J.’s lack of respect for her parents – don’t trust young readers’ abilities to analyze a book. Reading is but one step; far more important for a student, and for our national intellect, is reasoning out the book’s meanings and implications. Is a book good even if bad things happen, or bad characters? Is it appropriate to include a gay character? How about a father who doesn’t talk to his kids? These are extremely valid questions, and the students I’ve met, when given the courtesy to ponder and debate, provide thoughtful and valid answers.
For more information on censorship and how you can work to prevent it, visit these:
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