I lived in New York City back in the 1980s, which is when the Bordertown series was created. New York was a different place then — dirtier, edgier, more dangerous, but also in some ways...

There’s only so many times you can fight before the only person you fight for is yourself.

The demon is crouched in the corner, between the Cheetos and the onion dip. It’s a small one, only about four feet tall: a low-level creeper. I flick my gaze over the spot like I...

It didn’t feel like the Fates were looking over me that day. When I glanced up, I couldn’t see destiny’s threads tangling in the sky like the silk of a giant spider’s web, woven by...

Gabe realized he was standing there alone, with a goofy smile on his face. Limping inside, he closed the door behind him, her words still lingering in his mind. Gabe wanted more than anything to...

Suddenly, I can’t move. I can’t speak. I am set in stone, but it’s a glorious chiseled sort of stone.

They tried not to stare, but they couldn’t keep their eyes away. I was a freak now. I made people uncomfortable and not necessarily because of my scars-but because what my scars represented. Danger, fear,...

And then there was an explosion.

You know how there’s that one person who stumbles into your life and you instantly have a connection with them? Someone who’s a genuinely good person. Someone you just know you can build a great...

If my sister were a character in a Victorian drama, she would be the snobbish rich girl with a penchant for talking shit about everyone behind their fan.

As a man, I instantly became aware of the gold in her hair, her height measured against mine, and how easily she’d fit in my arms. ~Ren

His wax-white skin was cool to the touch when she brushed his neck to find the knot of cloth. She’d never been this close to a vampire,never realized what it would be like to be...

I also told you when I made you my bride that I would not count the days if you would promise me the same. I don’t intend to start now, love. You’re my wife, yesterday,...

Are you coming with us?”He looked down at me, his eyes a cool mint green. He seemed to have calmed down since Cadan left. “If you wish.””I would feel better if you were close,” I...

Breath and heat and contact and shirts off and skin on skin and smiles and murmurs and the enormity revealing itself in the tiniest of gestures, the most delicate sensations.

My thoughts are quiet, but not calm. There is a terror on the edge of the silence, a terror fed by my burning flesh and the stench of death.

My life is hard. No one would rob me of that. The clothes I am wearing came out of a knotted up black plastic trash bag from a resale shop downtown. And not the downtown...

No.’ Dorren shifted onto his knees, leaning towards her. ‘This is just the beginning, you’ll see. You are his weakness and you will ruin everything.

I come to oil country with a book about radicals who wish for the end of pipelines. But that’s not what it’s about. It’s the friction point of prosperity and concern, ability and disability, the...

Quit worrying so much about the boards and nails of your life. Focus on the stuff that lasts.” He glanced through the window toward the glowing light of the kitchen where Meg and my mom...

Did you see him eat?

Books in the YA genre, in particular, should use proper grammar because they’re more of an example to young people than adults books are.

I closed my eyes and listened to the occasional chirps of tiny birds hidden in the trees around us, the bubbling of water over rocks down below, cicadas rattling a chorus off in the distance....

Nothing makes you think you might need years of therapy like saying the word breasts in front of your mother.

I like music,’ she said slowly, ‘because when I hear it, I…I lose myself within myself if that makes any sense. I become empty and full all at once.

My name is Arianna Morganna Brittany DuLac–you can imagine why I went by the name Ryan.

Sure looks like that’s working out well for you,” I say, piercing him with a scornful look.

I never get writer’s block. My secret…I have purring cats in surround sound while I write…best white noise on the planet.” R.Rose when asked how she deals with writer’s block.

How dare you come into my home? And hurt my family? I ought to tear your throat out right here, right now!

Sometimes I think that everyone has a tragedy waiting for them, that the people buying milk in their pajamas or picking their noses at stoplights could only be moments away from disaster. That everyone’s life,...

I didn’t even notice that my shoes were full of mud by the time I reached the rocky shore. There was ragged yellow police tape tied to some branches, dancing in the wind. It was...

He made my mom call and tell Maureen I wouldn’t be in to see her anymore. He said therapy is a waste of money. He also told her to upgrade the cable service and to...

I look like vanilla pudding so nobody knows that on the inside I am spider soup.

She can go places we cannot, associate with people we cannot, understand things about society types and women that we never can. (Why Mr. Burke hires Violet Strange.)

The same beautiful receptionist greeted Christian who had met him before and she extended the same lush invitation as she had the last time. Victoria’s eyes narrowed and Christian chuckled under his breath at her...

I’m not allowed to be who I really am.

I scoop a clattering cascade of green apple Jelly Bellys into the white paper bag and remember when we were seven. I got stung by a jellyfish. Tim cried because his mother, and mine, wouldn’t...

magic swirls about us like an invisible fog of energy that can be tapped by those gifted enough, using a variety of techniques that center on layered spelling, mumbled incantations, and a burst of concentrated...

That smoke you smell is me frying your brains every time we kiss longer than twenty-three seconds.

I’m looking to make a miracle

Do good. That’s all any of us can do.

When you make such a large withdrawal of happiness, somewhere you’ll have to make an equally large deposit. It all goes back to the universal law of equilibrium.

So is this being in love? I stay with the moment, waiting to find out, the space between us fluctuating with uncertainty. The only thing I am sure of is that each time his lips...

All I know is that the fear I have been battling all night is breaking down the door of my ignorance. As my feet slam down I feel not the hard, wet asphalt but the...

Lesson one: expect to get screwed over for the convenience of others on a regular basis.

I get that. For you, it’s more than following a bunch of rules—no sex, no booze, no swear words, pray every night and twice on Sunday.

Once upon a time, a girl had a father, a prince, a society of friends. Then they betrayed her, so she destroyed them all.

Her gaze travels back to the lie twisted in a tempest of mud and blood. She witnesses the culmination of her recklessness through a curved lens. Absorbed in life uncoiling, unaware of the world beyond...

The fact that at the moment the distinction is being made, a young adult, as opposed to an adult, is the one reading it. In other words, I don’t entirely believe in the distinction. A...

Jenna walked in between desks and plonked herself down behind hers, noticing AGAIN that the teacher hadn’t graced the class with his zitty presence. She thought Mr. Kennan needed to get fired, which said a...