I often have trouble falling asleep at night, so when I’m lying in bed I think up stories. That’s where I do a lot of my thinking. I also get a lot of ideas while...

God bless Interlibrary Loan. I pay a lot of library fines. In the case of ‘A Single Shard,’ I was using books that hadn’t been checked out in 30 years, so I didn’t feel too...

I used to sit home with my computer and write. After the Newbery, I probably spend more than half my time on the road.

I enjoy my family a lot. I have active teenagers, and they’re in soccer and choral events.

After high school, I went to Stanford University and majored in English. Of course, that gave me a chance to do lots more reading and writing. I also received degrees in London and Dublin –...

If you’re trying to write about very strong horror, very strong fear or very strong emotion, it’s easy to overwrite it.

[W]hat people truly desire is access to the knowledge and information that ultimately lead to a better life–the collected wisdom of the ages found only in one place: a well-stocked library.To the teachers and librarians...

I want all my books to provoke some kind of response in the reader, to make them think something or feel something or both, and for that to become a part of them and work...

When I’m writing, I try not to think things like, ‘Gosh, I have to finish writing this book.’ Books are very long and it’s easy to get discouraged. Instead I think to myself, ‘Wow, I...

How could an alphabet—letters that didn’t even mean anything by themselves—be important?But it was important. Our stories, our names, our alphabet. Even Uncle’s newspaper.It was all about words.If words weren’t important, they wouldn’t try so...

All my books take a long time to research. I spend several months researching before I start writing, and in the middle of writing I often have to stop and look up stuff. At my...

Marial and Uncle were no longer by his side, and they never would be again, but Salva knew that both of them would have wanted him to survive, to finish the trip and reach the...

A mistake made with good in your heart is still a mistake, but it is one for which you must forgive yourself.

In my family and among Korean-Americans, there just is no occasion that people would get together without bibimbap. It’s something that people eat when they’re wanting to celebrate or have a good time with friends.

Foxes were dreaded animals. They were not large or fierce, like the bears and tigers that roamed the mountains, but they were known to be fiendishly clever. some people even believed that foxes possessed evil...

My first publication was a haiku in a children’s magazine when I was 9 years old. I received one dollar for it! I gave the check to my dad for Christmas, and he framed it...

I do think that part of literature’s job is to comment on and participate in the social issues of the time.

I can give advice to anyone interested in writing in one word: Read! I think it’s much more important to be a reader than to be a writer!

When I was reading books for ‘Seesaw Girl,’ I came across several references to the fact that in the 11th and 12th centuries, Korean pottery was considered the finest in the world. I liked that...

I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember, and reading even before that. My mom still has stories that I wrote when I was in kindergarten. I was a reader and a re-reader....

What I like most: Reading well-written sources that take me to another world for hours at a time – and being able to call that ‘work!’ Also, of course, finding a gem of information that...

Most writers adore their editors, and I’m no exception.

With a book called ‘Keeping Score,’ I really did want to write a book about the Korean War, because I felt that it is the least understood war in the American cultural imagination. So I...

Each of my books has taken me a different length of time to write – eight months for ‘Seesaw Girl,’ eight months for ‘Shard,’ three years for ‘When My Name Was Keoko!’ The publisher takes...