Curiosity Thrilled the Cat

Sofie Kelly is the pseudonym of young adult writer and mixed-media artist, Darlene Ryan. Sofie/Darlene lives on the east coast with her husband and daughter. In her spare time she practices Wu style tai chi and likes to prowl around thrift stores. And she admits to having a small crush on Matt Lauer.

How did you get started as a writer?
I've been writing forever. (I won third prize in a poetry contest in third grade.) I wrote radio commercials for years and lots of bad short stories that I couldn't get published--for good reason--they were awful. But the more I wrote, the more I learned.

Did you always want to be a writer?
No. I wanted to move to California, become a director and marry Michael Cole from The Mod Squad, which gives you an idea of how old I am. I think I became a writer by evolution. I went from writing commercials and short stories to writing articles and eventually books.

Was English your favorite subject in school?
It wasn't--which always surprises people. My favorite subject was math, at least until calculus came along.

Where do you get your ideas?
Everywhere. It could be something I hear on the news. It could be something someone says to me, or something I overhear. (Yes, I'm guilty of eavesdropping in public.) And I like to watch people and make up stories about who they are and what they're doing.

What's the secret to writing a book?
The secret to writing a book is...that there is no secret. Writing a book is like everything else in life, you have to show up and do it. There may be writers who wait for inspiration to hit and then the words just pour out, but I'm not one of them. I work from an outline and I write a certain number of words each day. Some days it's easy. Some days I keep clicking on the Word Count and moaning, "Am I done yet?"

What do you like to read?
The short answer is everything. I read a lot of mystery and paranormal, but if something about a book intrigues me--the title, the subject, sometimes even the cover art--I don't pay any attention to the genre. I tend to read more than one book at a time and one of them is usually non-fiction.