Can you talk a little bit about this idea of the grief process and how we as people and also characters in fiction have this idea that there is some sort of control that we have over the past, even if it's sort of detached from us?

Yeah.

Well, I talk about in my author's note, how after my mom died, my dad remarried to someone who was very young.

She was only 18 when he married her.

And my brother and I were, um, eight and 10.

And we were kind of told that's the past.

You know, they, all my mother's things were taken out.

And the sort of follow-up to this question I want to ask today is, have you been able to reach out to young readers? Have you had contact with classrooms? And have you seen your work being received as opposed to all the challenges that constantly make the news? What's sort of your perspective on how your work is actually impacting people when it's out there?

So, is there a particular passage or scene that really sticks out to you either then or now that you're looking back on it that you're like, wow, this was really impactful for me? Yes.

And, you know, he had this fascination with his father because his father was not very loving.

And there was this distance, coldness and distance between them, which he wanted so much to have something.

the closeness with his father.

He desired to be what his father was, which when you're at that age and you've got hormones going on, he even had sexual fantasies about seducing his father.

Then also the adult men in his father's life, he had fantasies about those men.

So here you have this kid, 14, 15, 16 years old, having these sexual fantasies about adult men and this weird kind of thing about his father.

So I'm curious what that pathway was like.

I'm hoping you could tell listeners a bit about the characters they will meet and share with them.

Well, I've told you a little bit about the grandmother, Martha Turner.

She is a pickle.

She has her own journey throughout the book, but she's actually one of my favorite characters.

But Ben, right away, he's lonely.

He's sent out to explore the town by himself, as I did all the time, just walking and walking and walking.

And he immediately makes two friends on his first day.

Now, speaking of middle grade and the multiple books you've read, is there anything that you're currently working on or anything you can talk about or give us a sneak peek into? Well, I am, you know, yes,