Ink

his life to matter and to belong to him, and he won’t let anything or anyone stop him. I know how hard it can be to keep going when life looks bleak, and Tomo’s courage inspires me—

and I hope it inspires you, too!

Q.

Q Was it hard to write about a culture you didn’t grow up in? How did your stay in Japan inform what you wrote, and how did you fill in the knowledge gaps as the story started taking shape?

A. I wanted to be as accurate as possible in Ink, so I did as much research as I could. While living in Osaka, I kept a daily journal of all my experiences there, from the temples and shrines I visited to daily life and meals with my host family. I’ve kept in close contact with my friends there, and also hosted students from Shizuoka. While writing Ink, I visited Shizuoka again and took numerous photos, wander-ing through Sunpu Park, touring one of my host students’

schools and sitting in the grasses at Toro Iseki.

Katie was an ideal protagonist for me because she is an outsider looking in, and so it was a POV I could iden-tify with and write with confidence. For school life and Japanese culture, I made sure to check with my friends in Japan as much as possible. I also watched every Japanese school-based drama I could get my hands on to see school life in action.

Q.

Q What was the hardest scene for you to write?

What was the most fun scene to write?

A. I think the hardest scene for me to write was the love hotel.

Beneath the facade he constructs, I know Tomohiro is a kind, gentle person, and I didn’t like to see him acting that way toward Katie. I wanted to shove him in a corner and tell him to think about how he acted! So while it was hurting Tomohiro to act that way to Katie to save her, it was hurting me, too. Poor guy.

The scenes that are the most fun for me to write are when Tomo and Katie interact. From one snarky comment to the next, they have that attitude where they want to one-up each other, but never in a belittling way. Sometimes their replies to each other are so snappy that I have to rush to type them down and I have to separate them in my mind to catch up! I love that they’re competitive in a friendly way.

And of course I love writing the ink scenes. It’s fun to see what sinister way the ink will twist in next.

Q.

Q What are some of your favorite books and/or authors, and did any of them in particular inspire you to become a writer?

A. I always wanted to be a writer. Growing up, my biggest influences were Jane Yolen, Bruce Coville, Lloyd Alexander and C.S. Lewis. I loved traditional fantasy, but then TV

shows like Gargoyles and Beauty and the Beast, where an impossible thing was happening in our world, became so ap-pealing to me. I loved Narnia because it made the fantasy world accessible to me, and I started to search out similar stories that were possible in our world.

I took a turn into slightly darker-edged YAs after reading books like the Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness, Half World by Hiromi Goto and The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. I love those books because they aren’t afraid to take you into the darker places, to let the worst possible things happen before they lead you out again. Also, reading lighter fantasy by Terry Pratchett reminded me to keep my books both realistic and human. I didn’t want flat characters. I wanted bad guys who were likable and had good traits, good guys who had flaws and reasons why they were shaped that way. I love complex characters because we learn so much about ourselves from reading about them.

Q.

Q Without giving away spoilers, can you tell us a bit about what’s going to happen to Katie and Tomo in Book Two?

A. Katie and Tomo are going to have to face some serious con-sequences to their decisions in Ink. With Katie returning to understand her connection to the Kami, her closeness is going to cause Tomo further loss of control unless he figures out how to contain his power. The Yakuza aren’t going to take their embarrassment lightly, and Jun isn’t going to give up on recruiting Tomo to his idea of the future. It’s going to take everything Katie and Tomo have to save each other. I hope you’ll look forward to it!

1Q. At the beginning of Ink, Katie has to leave everything familiar and move in with her aunt in Shizuoka. Have you ever been in an unfamiliar situation out of your comfort zone? How did it make you feel? Did you learn something from the experience?

2Q. Imagine you have the Kami power to draw anything and it will become real. What would you draw? What if there was the possibility that your drawing could turn against you? Would you still take the chance?

3Q. Shiori, Tomohiro’s sisterlike friend, finds herself the target of bullying because of her pregnancy. Did it surprise you that she’d be bullied for keeping the baby? How did you deal with an instance in which you were bullied? Is there any effective way to stop bullying?

4Q. Ishikawa is always calling Tomohiro to bail him out of bad situations with the Yakuza. Do you think Tomohiro is really helping Ishikawa by rushing to his aid? How else could Tomohiro help him? What would you do to help a friend like this?

5Q. Tomohiro struggles against his powers, determined to shape his own fate. Is there something you wanted to achieve that you had to struggle for? What sort of obstacles did you face, and how did you motivate yourself to keep going? What is something you would fight for until the end?

6Q. What did you think of Tomohiro’s decision to push Katie away to protect her? Have you ever had to step away from someone or something you cared about? If you were a Kami, how would you protect your loved ones?

7Q. At the end of the story, Katie says, “It was my life. I was going to live it.” Have you ever gone against expectation for something important to you or acted in an unexpected way? What was the reaction of others around you?

8Q. What do you think of Jun’s goal to rid the world of the Yakuza, criminals and corrupt governments, no matter the cost? If you were a Kami, how would you feel about being used as a weapon of war for a peaceful goal? Does peace require war? Is force justified to reach an important goal?

“Hold still,” Yuki said, threading the thick obi ribbon through the back of the bow. She pulled the loops tight. “Okay, now breathe in.”

I stared down at my keitai, flipping through the call history.

“Katie?”

“Hmm?”

“Breathe in.”

I took a deep breath and she shifted the bow to the center of my back. “How’s that?”

“Looks great,” I mumbled, flipping through my messages.

Empty.

“You didn’t even look up,” Yuki said.

“Mmm-hmm. Hey!” Yuki snatched the phone out of my hands.

“Ano ne,” she said. “Listen. Yuu will call you—I’m sure of it. You don’t want to be the panicky girlfriend, right?”

I didn’t say anything. How could I? Yuki didn’t know that not being able to get ahold of Tomohiro could mean the Yakuza had him, or the Kami had kidnapped him, or that he’d drowned in an ocean of his own sketching.

Yuki grinned and sidestepped, tugging the creases out of the sleeves of my yukata, the summer kimono she was lending me. “Now look,” she commanded, pointing at the mirror.

I looked.

The yukata made me look elegant, the soft yellow fabric draped and folded