The question I am asked by readers most frequently is how much of my books come from events in my life. The simple answer is: a whole bunch. I'm queried further to put a percentage on it and I have come up with 90% for PAPERBOY and 50% for COPYBOY. I have no idea if...

A video chat this week with students at Hickory Creek Middle School in Frankfort, Illinois, a community 35 miles south of Chicago, involved a new wrinkle for me. Students in three different English Language Arts classes at the school were asked by their teachers to...

A young reader sent me the above rendering of Mr. Spiro's philosophy of life – "the quartering of the soul" from PAPERBOY. I love it when readers – young or old – make a deep dive into a book, any book. There are the words on the page and then there are the thoughts...