Dana Reinhardt
Why don't you have a bio section?
Because I hate writing about myself.
But wouldn't that be easier than answering a whole bunch of FAQs?
Maybe. Probably. Go on...
So where are you from?
I'm from Los Angeles, but now I live in San Francisco. Except for the summers where I go back to Los Angeles in search of the sun.
What are you doing when you aren't writing?
Laundry, usually. Sometimes dishes. And I really like to walk near the Golden Gate Bridge.
Why don't you run instead of walk?
Running is hard. And I'm sort of lazy.
Have you ever had a real job?
Yes. Of course I have. I've waited tables, worked with adolescents in foster care, read the slush pile at a publishing house, and fact checked for a movie magazine. I also worked for FRONTLINE on PBS and Peter Jennings at ABC. I went to law school, which I know doesn't count as a job, but hey, that was a lot of work.
What's your writing day like? Do you stick to a routine?
I like to write in the mornings. Sometimes that means I have to get up really early. I try to write 700 words a day -- about three pages. I know there are lots of writers out there who can write way more than that. I know this because writers like to tell you about how many words they've written on FACEBOOK. So I try not to look at FACEBOOK when I'm writing. And anyway, I've learned that 700 words are about all I'm good for on any given day, and if I write more than that I usually end up getting rid of most of it later.
What, are you lazy or something?
I already told you I'm lazy. But seriously, 700 words are a lot of words. 700 of them, to be precise.
Where do you get your ideas?
From someplace inside my head.
That's not really an answer.
Yes, it is. And it's as honest an answer as I can give.
Are your books autobiographical?
Not really. I'm not adopted, I've never told a lie that sent someone to jail, I've never built a house or had a brother go to war. But there are always things in my books that come from my life or from the lives of the people around me. It would be impossible to make up everything.
Why do you write young adult fiction?
Because I was a young adult when I fell in love with reading and I can remember how books made me feel back then. How they provided both comfort and escape. That might make me sound like a shut-in, but I wasn't. I was just open to the experience books offered, probably more open than I am now as an adult. And I like writing for that sort of audience.
What exactly is young adult fiction?
Lots of people have thought long and hard about this question and have had many intelligent things to say about voice and how YA books can't spend too much time on adult characters, etc. I don't have anything to add to the debate except to say that YA should be a place to go in the bookstore or library if you are looking for a coming of age story, no matter how old you are.
Do you have a favorite book?
Yes.
Don't be coy, what is it?
To Kill a Mockingbird.
How come there aren't any vampires or wizards in your books?
Hmmmm... good question. Maybe I should write about vampires and wizards.
No, you shouldn't. You wouldn't be very good at that.
Thanks for the vote of confidence.
Did you wear a Soupy Sales sweatshirt when you were seven?
Does anybody even know who Soupy Sales is?
That's what the Internet is for. Don't avoid the question.
I'm sorry, is this really a Frequently Asked Question?
No. But, c'mon, tell us anyway.
Yes, I did. But I'm trying to portray myself as someone who wasn't a total loser. So maybe you shouldn't bring that up. And it also makes me sound ancient, which I'm not. Yet I had a Soupy Sales sweatshirt. And I loved it. It was yellow. And really soft.
You're right. It does make you sound like a loser.
“The walls were coming down around me, but still, I couldn't imagine telling the truth. Not now. It was too late. How can I tell Mom and Dad what we'd done? It would ruin everything. It would ruin their image of me; it would ruin every thought they'd ever had about who I was. It would be another death.Another loss. Another miscarriage.”
“But here's something that I know about friendship: Sometimes the right thing to do is to not point out that your friend hasn't touched her chicken fingers or French fries and not point that maybe she's just overreacting. Instead, you just smile and sit with her and say, "I understand" when really, you don't understand her at all.”
“It was then, there in the darkness, with only those little pin-points of light to see by, light from a world away where other people with their own problems and their own secrets lived their own lives, that everything in our world changed for good.”
“There are days when I think I don't believe anymore. When I think I've grown too old for miracles. And that's right when another seems to happen.”
“Friends, I was pretty sure, lift their friends up; they don't weigh them down like a sack full of stones”
“When there's something or someone, when there's anything that makes you happy, you don't let a continent or an ocean or an empty pocket keep you apart”
“I think about how we can’t always live in the moment because moments pass, and when we’re lucky, we have the kind of moments that we can’t help wanting to go back to. We think about them, remember how they felt, and when more time passes we tell stories of these moments that are worth reliving.”
“Some things you can fix, and some things you can’t. And I just think it is a shame to walk away from the things you can.”
“Precision about language can be really, really annoying. It can make you miss the point of what the other person is saying altogether.”
“Guys don’t go for me. Period. I don’t distract them. They don’t sneak glances in my direction. They don’t think of me when I’m not standing right in front of them. I’m scenery. I’m background.”
“Everyday is filled with opportunities to take a quiet moment”
“But then I think about where knowing somebody has gotten me: nowhere. No. someplace worse than nowhere, because when you’re nowhere I’m pretty sure you feel nothing.”
“One day things can be going along like they always were and then, suddenly, in a simple rotation of an overheated planet, everything can change.”
“I've learned enough this year to know that life may surprise you, but not usually in the ways you imagine.”
“My brother, he says. My brother is dead."And again he asks me to kill him. One more time before he falls to his knees and sobs. And i get it. I do. Because i have a brother too.”
“Don't worry about the finish line. Don't question what you're doing. Just quiet your mind and keep up the pace.”
“The truth about our lie. The truth about our lie? Or was it a lie about the truth? Truth and lies. Lies and Truths.Lielielielielie. Truthtruthtruththruthtruth.”
“Lies destroy you,”
“There's no going back from what happened. You can go back and understand the past, but you can't go back and change it.”
“Sometimes things happen. Things happen even when you don't intend them to happen. Maybe at the beginning you had good intentions, or intentions you thought were harmlessm but before you knew it things got out of your control.”
“Harper, I..."You don't have to say it."I don't?"I know."You know what?"I lean against him, nestling in the crook of his arm. I talk into his neck. I don't need to be able to see to find the parts of him I know.That morning in the trailer, when we had it to ourselves, and you made me breakfast, I wondered whether you would tell me you loved me, if you'd ever tell me, and I looked at you, and I thought you were going to say it, but instead you went off on a tangent about boysenberry jam."And?"And it was funny. And it was close enough to the real thing for me. Just sitting there with you like that."Boysenberry jam?"Boysenberry jam."Harper," he whispers into my hair.Yeah?"I boysenberry jam you.”
“I know certain truths about life.”
“I totally bought you as a girl," says Marisol. "I'll double check with Frances later, but by the sounds of things, you seem to have no balls.”
“The roof was torn off the gym. God's way of telling the jocks that they'd better remember who's really charge.”
“The Little Drummer Boy" was playing in the background for what seemed like the third time in a row. I fought off an urge to beat that Little Drummer Boy seneless with his own drumsticks.”
“But I do remember this thing that this famous rabbi wrote once about how Christians build cathedrals, these gorgeous impressive structures, but Jews, with a long history of watching their buildings get destroyed, build their cathedrals in time. The High Holidays. Shabbat. Cathedrals carved out of time that can never be worn down. I know you're no Jew but I kind of think that's what you did with your summer down here.”
“But no matter what happens, the earth keeps turning. Monday always comes and eventually, sometimes excruciatingly slowly, that Monday is followed by a Friday. You take tests, hand in papers you wrote at two in the morning the day they were due, and your shoes get worn out, and the pollen in the air increases so that you go through an entire package of tissues during the SATs, and you wander through the crowds at parties looking for Natalie Banks because you came with her, and you watch her take off for the backyard with a senior who seems to be in the backyard with a different girl at every party, and you learn to play chess with your dad, and you eat too much ice cream, and your favorite television drama has its two-hour season finale, and then suddenly the school year ends and you pack your bags for Tennessee.”
“Linus closes his eyes and puts his arms out at his sides. "Look to this day. For it is life. The very life of life." I stand beside him. Quiet. He continues. "It its brief course lie all the verities and realities of your existence. The splendor of beauty, the bliss of growth, the glory of action. Today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope." He opens his eyes and looks at me. "It's an ancient Sufi text." He smiles. "My mantra." He folds his paper, bats me over the head with it and walks away.”
“I'm curious how someone...finds God, or solace, or peace or whatever it is he finds out here alone...while he's reciting words. Is it just a matter of believing what you say?”
“I have a theory that as long as you have one good friend, one real friend, you can get through anything.”
“They're just words. And words alone don't really mean anything. It's what you feel and what you believe when you say them that matter.”