How did you become interested in zines? How have they changed since the publication of the novel?
My daughter’s friend, Colette, had a zine when she was 15 (and still puts out issues sporatically now, even though she’s almost 10 years older!) As soon as I saw her issues I was intrigued with this method of putting your writing (and your feelings) out into the world. It was a phenomenon that was new to me, but Colette put me in touch with other zine writers too and I wrote to them to see what had driven them to produce their zines. It seemed like a natural fit for a YA novel. There are still many paper zines around today–if you search the Net you’ll find lots of sources for them. Factsheet 5 is no longer available, and many zines are now e-zines, but the zine movement is still very alive. What inspired John and Marisol’s story? I had always wanted to write a story in which a gay or lesbian teen character was already out of the closet and comfortable with his or her sexuality. Up until that point, most books for YAs with gay protagonists were about their coming out. I wanted to write
