Sharon Draper

With the 'Hazelwood High' trilogy, I wasn't sure I was writing a trilogy. I would just write one book, then another, and then another, because the young adults who wrote me told me that they wanted to read more.

If I'm serious, yes, I'd like to have done what Shakespeare did... to act and write. You learn so much from acting. One of our great writers, Alan Bennett, does both supremely well. When I write a story, I tend to speak it aloud as I'm writing it.