Bookshelf: Hello to Ally Carter!

Ally Carter is the New York Times bestselling author of the Gallagher Girls series, featuring I'd Tell You I Love You But Then I'd Have to Kill You and Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy, with GG#3 coming out next June. ILKY is being turned into a Walden Media movie (think Chronicles of Narnia), which is totally wicked. Thank you so much for joining us, Ally!
INN: Which Gallagher Girl most resembles you?

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AC: It’s really hard to say, but my guess is that Cammie probably feels the way I feel more frequently than the others. I do have to say, however, that Anna Fetterman and I are prone to the same sorts of accidents (bloody nose from opening a can of Pringles? Yeah, actually happened.)
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INN: How did you react when you first found out that I'd Tell You I Love You But Then I'd Have to Kill You was on The New York Times bestseller list?

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AC: Great question! At the time I was still working at my “day job” and it was an incredibly busy day as well, so at first it was a huge shock, and then a huge thrill, and then I had to stop thinking about it and go do a bunch of other stuff that had absolutely nothing to do with books, so it was very surreal to get this HUGE news and then have to switch gears so quickly and get back to work.
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What was perhaps more shocking was the next week when I found out the book was still on the list. And the week after and so on and so on. I honestly expected that all the people who were going to buy the book had already bought it. The fact that it kept selling was the most amazing thing of all.
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INN: Did you do any espionage when you were a kid? Or if not, who would you have spied on?

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AC: Well, yeah, I guess I did. I think we all did, to tell you the truth. All of my friends knew the class schedules of the guys they liked, and where they were likely to be after school, and all that stuff. And that’s exactly what real spies do. That’s something that I’ve always said about these books: every girl with a crush is a spy—these girls just have the training to back it up.

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INN: What are you reading right now, and why?

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AC: I just got back from the library where I picked up The Perks of Being a Wallflower because that’s one of those books that when other writers find out I haven’t read it, they gasp and yell YOU HAVE TO READ IT! So I’m going to do that this weekend.

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INN: Any advice for teen writers?

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AC: Don’t think and worry and talking about “being a writer”. Just write. It’s honestly as simple as that—read everything you can and write all you want. That’s the only way to learn this business.
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Thank you so much, Ally!

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Visit Ally Carter at her rocking website http://www.allycarter.com/, and buy the first Gallagher Girl here on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Tell-Love-Then-Gallagher-Girls/dp/1423100042/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223129257&sr=8-2.