Autograph Session at grade school in Northern Illinois

The following is a list of questions I get asked quite often. If you have any more questions, please write to me by going to the "contact" page and e-mailing me personally. The web editor will deliver it to my mailbox. Thanks for writing to me!

Do you have any pets? Yes. Right now my family has a VERY soft, white, fluffy hamster named... you guessed it -- Fluffy!

Are you married? Yes. I've been married since 1995.

Do you have any children? Yes, three kids.

Do you have any brothers and sisters? Yes. I am the youngest of five.

What are some of your hobbies? I love to play sports like softball, hockey, bmx racing, swimming, ice skating, and I LOVE to watch motocross! I also love to go to amusement parks and ride the rollar-coasters. But my all-time favorite thing to do is go to the movies!

Did you always want to be a writer? When I was little I wanted to be a movie star or a dancer! But when I grew up, I didn't want to move away from my family (I live near Chicago and would have to move to California) so I decided to write. I started out in advertising, since I love t.v. commercials. Once I had children, I didn't want to commute downtown to work at an agency where I would have to be away from my kids all day. That is when I decided to be a freelance writer, so I could work from home.

How do you think of what books to write? I write about things that interest me. Right now I am very curious about water towers. Why are there so many different sizes and shapes, and why are they so high up? And why do some have such fancy paint jobs? Questions like that make me want to learn more, so I root around books and on the internet and answer all the questions I can think of, then I try to explain all I learned in an interesting way.

Sometimes, I like to just make up new stories altogether. I am working on a book called "The Year I Had No Friends" which was inspired a little bit by my life in the seventh grade when my best friends went off with the cool crowd and got the school not to talk to me.

How do you pick the names of your characters? I often use names I like, and keep them similar to real people I've met. Sometimes I use names of kids I meet at school visits. I am HORRIBLE about remembering peoples' names, which can hurt peoples' feelings. (It doesn't mean I don't remember THEM, I just have a weird trouble with remembering names.) So sometimes I use names of people I really like to honor them.

Who is your favorite author? My all-time favorite author is S.E. Hinton, in fact I'm putting her in my next book titled "WRITING & PUBLISHING: Opportunities Abound" (working title, forthcoming, 2007). But I also like SO MANY other authors like Kevin Henkes, Jack Gantos, Sharon Creech, William Steig, Lauren Child, Cynthia Rylant, Kevin Luthardt, Laura Numeroff, Jamie Lee Curtis, and many others!

What is the hardest part about being a writer? It is hard to be self-diciplined. You don't have a boss checking up on you. YOU are the boss, and if you want to go outside and play you do. But if you don't get your work done, your books won't make it to the store or library. So you have to be good and WRITE FIRST... play later! Also, it gets kind of lonely writing. I am usually alone, late at night, when my family is sleeping. I think best at night because it is quiet, so I usually write from 10pm until 2am. That is the middle of the night! Otherwise I like to go to the "quiet room" at my local library or coffee shop.

What is your favorite part about being a writer? I like going to different cities and states and meeting other writers, and kids, and adults. I like when people have read one of my books and learned something from it, or have just enjoyed it and been happy to meet me, too. Another good part is being able to write at home, so I can be "room mother" at my kids' school and go on field trips. Other moms and dads have to GO to work, so they aren't as lucky as I am sometimes. (I can even work in my pajamas!)

How can I become a writer? Good writers practice every day. Even if you just write in your diary or journal, that counts as writing. Another important part of writing is reading. You should always read every day, too. I was always a very slow reader (and still am) so I'd get frustrated and want to watch t.v. instead. But I kept practicing and got a little quicker as time went on. The better I read, the easier school became for me too.

There are a lot of great classes to take in grade school, high school, college and graduate school. You can learn to write all kinds of things from poetry to plays, from fiction and non-fiction. I have classes I teach, even on-line, so YOU could take a class from me!

Can you visit MY school? Maybe. It's up to your school to officially invite me. If there is a time when I am available to travel, I would love to try and meet you! You need to ask your librarian or teacher or PTA leader to go to my website and request an "Author Visit" through my contact page.

THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY SITE. COME BACK OFTEN TO SEE WHAT NEW BOOKS WILL BE COMING OUT SOON! -- Tina P. Schwartz