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I tell my students that being a writer is like being a member of a medieval guild and that what we are doing is very subversive and very important.

I encourage teachers to speak in their own voices. Don't use the gibberish of the standards writers.

For all its ups and downs and challenges, I love writing. We only grow through adversity, so I welcome the difficulties, knowing bumps in the road are my greatest teachers.

To me, writing is a considered act. It's something which is a great labor of thought and consideration.

When I teach writing, I always tell my students you should assume that the audience you're writing for is smarter than you. You can't write if you don't think they're on your side, because then you start to yell at them or preach down to them.

One of the reasons I love writing for middle graders, besides their voracious appetite for books, is their deep concern for fairness and morality.

Providing a writer isn't put off by conventions - and some are - attending them can be a nice break from the necessary isolation of writing.

The act of writing is a kind of catharsis, a liberation, but I never really concerned myself with that. I write because it interests me.

Writing is taking a risk, and it is actually fighting invisible and invincible enemies. They are over-confidence, stupidity, expectation and narcissism.