Awesome Authors: Kristen Tracy

We have the delightful Kristen Tracy with us today for Awesome Authors. Her Q&A is pretty awesome in itself, since it involves one of the most effective (and dangerous) school pranks we've seen yet, a Carmex caper, and how to get revenge on the guy who dumps you.

Kristen lives in San Francisco, where she writes middle-grade and teen novels. She teaches at 826 Valencia and is a volunteer gardener on Alcatraz. Also, she writes quite a bit of poetry. Visit her at www.kristentracy.com

What's the difference between a blog and a diary? Hmm. Diaries don't have comment sections. Also, I think it's understood that your diary is where you go to bleed in private after some dumb guy breaks your heart and your blog is where you go to bleed all over the blogosphere (and possibly publicize what the dumb guy did).

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? Nobody ever discovered any of my deep dark secrets, because, emotionally speaking, I have a pretty secure vault. But my high school was always experiencing weird scandals, because my class liked playing tricks. One of the biggest involved the lockers. They were set up like dominoes around the Commons area. And one day some sophomore guys decided to knock them over. And so they pushed the front one down and they all fell. But they didn't warn everybody. Or they didn't give people enough time or something, because one girl got stuck in there and her ear got torn. Not all the way off. But I'm pretty sure there was a noticeable scar. Because after the bandages came off, she wore a lot of hoodies and hats.

What's the worst thing you ever did to a friend? Are you still friends with her or him? I'm pretty good to my friends, so this is a tough question. Okay. I thought of one. In high school I had a falling out with a friend of mine. We'll call her Maple. It was a small fight. But Maple was very emotional, so it ended up becoming a rather significant spat. I liked Maple. She was sparky. Anyway, Maple and I were sharing a locker and she kicked me out. (For some reason, I couldn't get my own locker to open up on a consecutive basis, so she let me use hers. She had a top locker that was near most of my classes, so this was ideal for me). Anyway, I'm pretty sure that after I was officially kicked out of Maple's locker that I used to go back inside the locker and hide her Carmex. (She had a serious Carmex/flavored lip gel/tube Vaseline addiction.) I never took her Carmex. But I'd move it around. We're not still friends anymore. Maple moved very far away. Also, this may or may not be a true story.

What are your most recent books? What new projects are you working on now? My first middle-grade novel, Camille McPhee Fell Under the Bus, is coming out this summer. (It's based on an incident where I fell underneath my school bus in grade school.) And I've got a teen novel set in Prague that I'm working on that has two best friends, a crazy person, and lots of hot dudes in it. It'll be out next year.