Being an author is the first job I ever wanted. I started writing books in second grade and kept going until high school, at which point I decided it was an impractical, likely impossible dream. I had a whole other career in marketing before trying to write again, for fun, in 2014. It wasn’t until One of Us Is Lying had spent more than a year on the New York Times bestseller list that it finally occurred to me that “author” was a viable full-time job.
One of Us Is Next
I’ve owned two dogs in my life, and put both of them into recent books. My childhood golden retriever, Fritz, is Knox’s pet in One of Us Is Next, and my current rescue pup, Sammy, makes a cameo at the end of The Cousins.
All my first drafts are comprised mainly of dialogue, a few sparse descriptions, and a ton of unnecessary exposition that gets edited out almost immediately.
I was raised in the suburbs but I’ve always been a city person. I loved visiting my grandparents in Boston when I was a kid, and started taking the train into Cambridge, where I now live, as soon as I was old enough to go by myself. I like nature, but I feel most comfortable and at home when I’m surrounded by buildings.
I grew up reading truly twisted Grimm’s Fairy Tales—The Robber Bridegroom, for example, which features cannibalism and a missing finger—and started reading Stephen King books when I was ten years old, so I don’t really remember a time when I wasn’t drawn to dark storytelling.
I’ve never wanted to be friends with fictional characters as much as I want to be friends with David and Alexis Rose of Schitt’s Creek.
Meeting readers is my favorite part of the promotional side of being an author. Sometimes people apologize for being nervous, or having lots of books for me to sign, or forgetting their book and having nothing for me to sign, but honestly I’m just thankful you took the time to come to an event. Readers are what make this entire industry go round, and I was a reader well before I became a writer.