Sunday, June 8, 2008

Ellen Wittlinger

Ellen Wittlinger is the author of many young adult novels including Sandpiper, Parrotfish, Hard Love, and the forthcoming Love & Lies: Marisol's Story.

In a recent Writers Read entry, Jane Yolen called Sandpiper "a well-written and smart book about a girl and boy who both have lived with unbearable secrets and who are both afraid that they now have no lives to live at all."

Late last month I asked Wittlinger what she was reading. Her reply:
At the moment I'm reading The Liar's Club by Mary Karr and Thinking About Memoir by Abigail Thomas. I'm not too far into either of them, but enjoying them both a great deal.

My favorite recent YA read was The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks by E. Lockhart, and my favorite recent adult book was The Maytrees by Annie Dillard. Lockhart's book is about a prep school girl invading and bringing down a secret all-male society at her school and it is wonderful. The Maytrees is a very quiet book of character studies, beautifully written and observed, and also set in Provincetown, Mass., my beloved spiritual home.

I've also been reading lots of graphic novels lately so as to attempt to write one myself! I've liked: 100 Demons by Lynda Barry, Watchmen by Alan Moore, Vampire Loves by Joann Sfar, and Robot Dreams by Sara Varon.
Ellen Wittlinger's Hard Love won the American Library Association Michael L. Printz Honor Book and a Lambda Literary Award. Learn more about Wittlinger and her books at her official website.

--Marshal Zeringue