Author Interview Page 2

In my opinion, you've mastered the "child's voice". How do you think you were able to accomplish something that many
authors struggle with?

Considering how I wasn't trying to write YA, it's interesting how I stumbled into the genre. I'm not sure how I mastered such a
"voice" – to be honest, I just write, trying to get inside my character's head no matter what the age and empathize. Of course,
having four kids, presently aged 10 to 19, helps.

I love how you took Indonesian mythology and created such an intriguing tale. How did your idea for the THE DEMON
QUEEN develop? How long did it take you to write the book?

My S&S editor asked me to read an out-of-print book called THE SPIRIT HOUSE, about a Thai exchange student -- the young boy
of the American family the student lives with decides to build a traditional Thai spirit house to make the student feel more at
home -- and see if I couldn't do something similar. (Many YA houses are still looking for good horror, hint hint). The idea for DQ
plopped into my head like a mango from a tree. It was written under contract, meaning it was done to polished final draft within
a year.

In your earlier book, THE KILLING SEA, how much of what you saw as a relief worker during the devastating 2004 tsunami
found its way into the pages?

Pretty much every detail about the tsunami and its consequences was based on what survivors told me and my own observations.
The original draft also had a lot more of the Acehnese rebels, a jungle hideout, etc – this part of my experience as a relief worker
was editorially axed.

A few reviewers remarked unfavorably to the "grittiness" of Sarah and Raslan's predicament in THE KILLING SEA. What do
you say to those who feel some of the details could have been omitted?

They should have been there.

Who are your favorite authors today?

Just like when I was a boy, the writer of the present book I am reading is among my new (or renewed) favorite authors. Lately,
this would be David Leavitt (THE INDIAN CLERK), Chang-Rae Lee (NATIVE SPEAKER), and Michael Connelly (his Harry Bosch police
procedural series). I like lit-fic, I like genre – except I simply cannot get into Don DeLillo, and I have decided life is too short for
me to read another Clive Cussler novel.

As for YA: er, I don't read widely. Not because I don't want to, but because the books that get stranded upon Bali's shores as
tourist left behinds (which is how I find most of my reads) don't include much YA.

The cover art for THE DEMON QUEEN is a bit unusual. How did this develop?

It developed despite my protests. I really really didn't like it, but everyone else involved in publishing that novel did. It's in the
contract—the two things thing I have no final say in (although I am listened to) are the cover art and the title.

Which of your books is your favorite and why?

It would be FLAME TREE, which is more my natural style, dealing with adult themes. Although I really like my next YA coming out
next year, MONSTER'S PROOF, in which a young mathematical genius proves a mathematical creature into being – this conscious
being loves truth and beauty and elegance and is aghast at the state of our world. I've always liked math, and have over the years
read much of the popular and a bit of the semi-technical non-fiction books on math.

You've been commended by many reviewers for "confronting difficult decisions head on" and "not providing easy answers"
for your characters. What's your technique for creating such layered and unpredictable suspense?

A lot of writers spend an awful lot of energy and time and thought in deliberate construction of these elements. I'm one of them.
The technique is boiled down to "hard work."