Awesome Authors: Aimee Friedman

We're so happy to have YA author Aimee Friedman as our guest today, especially since she wrote A Novel Idea, part of the Simon Pulse Romantic Comedies line that Micol has also written for. Aimee is the New York Times bestselling author of several books for teens, including South Beach, French Kiss, Hollywood Hills, and The Year My Sister Got Lucky. Born and raised in Queens, New York, Aimee has written stories and novels since she was very young, and today lives and works in Manhattan. Please visit her website.

Blogs are a central part of the Bradford Novels universe. If you have a blog, why did you start blogging, and how did you come up with the name for your blog? I don't have one solo blog, but I would love to start one. I used to blog more regularly on the Simon Pulse Romantic Comedy blog, but I've been negligent with my posts there as of late! The same goes for my Amazon blog, and the blog on my website, www.aimeefriedmanbooks.com. That will be my February resolution: to blog more!
I will say, though, that I am addicted to Facebook, which, with its updates and live feed, is very blog-like in nature.

What's your favorite thing about blogging?
I am a bit of an oversharer with my close friends and family, and there is something cathartic about blogging, about letting the world inside your daily life, lending your foibles and your feelings a kind of grandeur and resonance. Also, as a writer, I find blogging very freeing; there's less of the pressure to "get it right" that I usually feel when I'm sitting down to work on a novel. Something about the informal format and vibe of a blog lends itself to a looser, more relaxed writing style, and experience. Yay for blogging!

What's the difference between a blog and a diary?
I still think of diaries as somehow more private, something to be locked up and tucked into a desk drawer. Writing something by hand, as opposed to typing it on a laptop, creates an intimacy, a secrecy. A diary is something you write for yourself, a blog is something you write with an audience in mind, and a novel may fall somewhere between the two.

Spencer Grace Kelly, the main character in GoldenGirl, is named after her distant relative, the Princess of Monaco. What’s your favorite Grace Kelly movie, and why?
Growing up, my favorite Grace Kelly movie was High Society, because my mom loved it, and would make a point of watching it with me and my sister whenever it was on TV. I loved the sophistication, and the glamorous vibe, and the music! But once I was older, I discovered the amazing Hitchcock films Dial M for Murder and Rear Window, both starring Grace, and both sexy, smart, and stylish mysteries.

GoldenGirl is full of scandals and exposed secrets. What was the biggest scandal at your high school? Did your classmates discover any of your deep, dark secrets?
I attended the Bronx High School of Science, which is a very competitive public school in New York City. So, dorky as it sounds, some of the biggest scandals in school swirled around who was going to what college, SAT scores, and GPAs. I swear! Of course, there were also the who-is-dating-who scandals, the so-and-so-had-a-fight gossip, etc. I tried to keep my secrets pretty close to the vest in high school; sure, my best friends knew who I was crushing on and what my craziest dreams were, but I tended to be pretty private.

What’s the worst thing you ever did to a friend? Are you still friends with her or him?
I like to think of myself as a very loyal and trustworthy friend. My biggest friendship regrets are those friendships that, through laziness and the passage of time and my chronic inability to stay in touch, I have let slip away. Probably my second biggest regret is making prank phone calls to various friends when I was growing up! Prank calls were all the rage back then, before the age of cell phones, caller IDs, IMs, etc. Prank calls: funny in the moment, but not a great idea.

What are your most recent books? What new projects are you working on now?
My latest novel, The Year My Sister Got Lucky, came out last year and will be released in paperback this June. It's a tale of sisters, secrets, betrayal, ballet, and yes, even some IMing! My newest novel, Sea Change, which will be in stores this June, doesn't involve much blogging, but it does involve some serious romance, legend, and lore.