I'm a young adult novelist/Yale undergraduate/cognitive scientist/pop culture junkie. I'm told we're a rare breed, but I really think the movement is growing.
My first novel is due out from Random House on July 25, 2006. Golden is about a girl with Aura Vision who moves cross country and ends up in the middle of some hardcore high school clique warfare at her new school, a school that happens to have more than its fair share of supernatural occurences. The sequel, Platinum, told from the point of view of the school's current ruling popular girl, is due out in 2007.
Between the two, my second book, Tattoo, which tells the story of four friends who set out for a simple Friday afternoon trip to the mall and end up with superpowers and a job that involves saving the world, is due out January 9, 2007.
In 2008, my two newest projects will hit the shelves. I don't have titles for sure yet, but they're the first two books in a series about a squadron of teen secret agents who also happen to be their school's varsity cheerleading squad. The first book, currently entitled The Squad, is due out in January, with the sequel to follow some time in 2008.
In my other life, I do work in child, infant, and animal cognition, so I spend lots of time in preschools, figuring out how kids think about the minds of others, and in tropical locations figuring out how monkeys in the wild do the same thing. My favorite of all of my subjects are lemurs, who are super friendly, super cute, and smarter than anyone ever gave them credit for being.
When I'm not researching or writing, I like to spend my time hanging out with my roommates, watching massive amounts of teen-centric and reality television, playing volleyball, procrastinating, gazing at shiny objects, and wondering why in the world tons of celebs have started to give themselves really ugly bangs.
