My husband works in the music industry and he's always the first to know about great new bands, so I end up seeming really with it because I'll be listening to an up-and-coming band before everyone else hears about it.

I had decided I wanted to write about food, and I knew the only way to do that is to speak with authority, which meant learning the language and knowing what that experience is like.

A big thing that gets people in trouble in the kitchen is not reading the recipe from start to finish before you cook it. Before you start anything, read through the entire recipe once.

You can't fake being able to cook well.

I was the only mixed-race girl in my school, but for me, that was a positive thing; it made me unique. If it wasn't for spending time with the black side of my family, perhaps I may have felt like an outcast, but I never did.

I would say I came from upper middle class family.

The University of Texas was very good to Will Muschamp and my family.

Middle grade fiction, to me, is really about emergence of self. It's about expressing the idea that the world is going to start affecting you more, and your parents' influence is going to wane. Middle grade is when a lot of kids discover their passions - art, music, sports, what have you.