Ding dong. Pizza delivery. I’ve got one bacon, pineapple and ham here for Heather Brewer…

We’re coming to the end of this tour and I admit I am totally lax about being all professional-pizza-delivery-technician now. In fact, I am going to ask for a piece of this pizza because this is one of my favorite kinds. Sorry. But I feel at home and Auntie Heather and I are informal types. Pizza is on me, K? So… Last month, my book Please Ignore Vera Dietz came out. I’ve been delivering cyber pizza (doing interviews–call it brain-pizza or answer-pizza) ever since and here I am, finally at your place where I can kick back for a minute. First: Thank you for having me! Second: Thank you being an amazing friend. Third: this couch is really comfy. Dude. I am never getting up off your couch.

HEATHER: Which of your characters has been the biggest struggle to write about and why?

ASK: The hardest character I’ve had to write was Charlie Kahn in PLEASE IGNORE VERA DIETZ. See, I was a little in love with Charlie, the same as Vera was, so when he acted like an ass or thought he was real tough, I was as disappointed as she was. I knew he was dead from the minute I started writing, so while I built the character up and loved him more and more, it just broke my heart that he was dead. I think we all know someone like Charlie—someone who is a good person but who gets involved with the wrong people and makes big mistakes. I think we all know people who are complete winners who are convinced, no matter what we tell them, that they are complete losers. And that’s just so sad.

HEATHER: [Amy thinks: Mushrooms AGAIN. Uncanny.] OMG, gimme gimme gimme an embarrassing picture and description!!!

ASK: Okay. This is me in sixth grade. It is 1982. I am growing out my only ever perm. And yes, I am wearing a cotton shirt. Get it? COTTON SHIRT? The wallpaper you see there is the wallpaper that was in my bedroom in the house I grew up in. It was very flowery. The glasses I got at a yard sale. The cotton shirt is courtesy of my sister’s clever art project. I was her model. I call this the flailing-my-arms look. Very modelish, don’t you think?

HEATHER: Where do you find to be the best place to write, the easiest place to get into the zone of the creative process?

ASK: Heather, I think you can totally relate to this, but this year has been so filled with the business of it all, I could probably write ANYWHERE right now! But my favorite place is my office, in my basement—or, temporarily in my bedroom so I have some natural light while I write about a girl who looks at the sky a lot. I feel rusty at the moment–a little like I forget how to write, man. I can’t wait to take this winter and push out this next book because book #5 is on its heels, too, and needs to get out!

AMY: Truth or dare time!

HEATHER:

• TRUTH: What’s the grossest thing you have ever done? 
• DARE: Write an entire chapter with Cheetos stuck up your nose.

ASK: See—I love Cheetos so much, I was considering the dare because heck yes, I would eat them even if they’d been up my nose. But then I realized that because of my time raising chickens, I have done some really really gross things. And so. Without going into much detail, I have cured an egg-bound hen. Meaning…the egg gets stuck, and one must use Vaseline to—uh—you know…move it along. And a close second: Dusting chickens for mites. Bleh.

Thank you so much for having me drop by. Now if you’ll kindly roll me off your couch, I’d better get to my next destination…only two more stops to go! Tomorrow, come by The Story Siren and find out more about the pagoda who talks in PLEASE IGNORE VERA DIETZ.

Oh. Hold up. I should tell you a little something about the book before I go, right?

PLEASE IGNORE VERA DIETZ

18-year-old Vera’s spent her whole life secretly in love with her best friend, Charlie. And over the years she’s kept a lot of his secrets. Even after he betrayed her. Even after he ruined everything. So when Charlie dies in dark circumstances, Vera knows a lot more than anyone. Will she emerge and clear his name? Does she even want to?

  “Brilliant. Funny. Really special.” –Ellen Hopkins, author of NYT bestselling Crank, Glass and Tricks