My Violet series is about a not-so-confident model named Violet Greenfield, a real girl who finds herself under runway lights and in the clutches of an overbearing (and sometimes cruel) agent. Over the course of the trilogy, Violet tries to navigate the crazy fashion world, hold onto her real friends and discover who she is on the inside while attention swirls around her outside. In the Young Adult genre, there’s been some talk about “message books,” books that teach lessons, essentially, and whether YA authors have an obligation to write this kind of book. I say absolutely not–why should YA authors be held to a different standard than Adult authors? Teen readers are smart, imaginative and endlessly savvy. They deserve characters that ring true, that grow, that inspire them. But they don’t need Pollyannas at every turn. That’s why I sometimes wanted to explore the dark sides of the fashion industry with the Violet books. In Violet on the Runway, Violet encounters drug addiction; in Violet by Design, she faces immense pressure to stay skinny in order to be “runway ready;” and in Violet in Private, she has to make a choice–stay in the spotlight or give up modeling and…

I’ve always been stuck in my teen years—and I love it. I’ll admit it: I loved high school. Okay, I didn’t love getting up at 7am for Chorus class or the emotional drama of liking the same guy as my BFF, but I did love my friends—still do—and I have lots of good memories. Please don’t hold it against me. Fast-forward college writing classes, and I found that I was still focusing on high school love, the most intense emotion I’d ever felt. 22-year-old crushes seemed more practical, more attainable—and somehow not as searing or sweet. Teen magazines became a way for me to re-live those years, and as I worked as an editor at ELLEgirl, I interviewed teenage actors, musicians and real girls who were doing amazing things. I felt so close to 17 again that I couldn’t believe they actually paid me! That’s why getting into the head of Violet, the main character in Violet on the Runway, was pure fun. I wanted to write about a real girl from a small town, one who had real insecurities and flaws, one who would go into this crazy, dark, beautiful world of fashion unsure of herself and come out…