About the Author

Deb Caletti is the award-winning and critically acclaimed author of nearly twenty books for adults and young adults, including Honey, Baby, Sweetheart, a finalist for the National Book Award, and A Heart in a Body in the World, a Michael L. Printz Honor Book.  Her books have also won the Josette Frank Award for Fiction, the Washington State Book Award, and numerous other state awards and honors, and she was a finalist for the PEN USA Award. She lives with her family in Seattle.

For all you good people who are looking for more biographical information, this is for you. If you’re doing a report, tell your teacher I said you should get an A.

I was born at a very young age in San Raphael, California. My father was in the optometric field, and my mother worked in the school district, was a painter, and later, a business owner. I had one older sister, my best buddy, even though she wouldn’t let me play Barbies with her and her friends (I would have been Ken, sis), and a cat named Luigi, who would come home all battered up as if he’d had a rough night on the town. We lived in California and moved cities (and schools) every few years. Even then, I loved to read. I loved the summer reading programs at the library, where they’d give you a stamp for every book you finished. Now they give prizes, but I was happy with the hole punch around the rocket ship. My parents would always tell me to put my book away when we were in the car driving at night, as I would read every few words when we passed streetlights. They may have been right when they said I’d ruin my eyes. My mother says there were several years where they never saw me, they just shoved reading material and food under my door (not really, but pretty close). I also started writing around then, too. I’d rush to my room to write stories, and, on long car rides, I’d look out at the northern California hills and try to make sense of the world around me. I needed books, and stories, and words. Like writers of all ages, I didn't feel like I fit in. I sometimes felt like an outsider, and books gave me a place to hide and a place to rest, and a place to be understood. I always say that being a writer is more about who you are than what you do. At least, this was true for me. I’ve always been one. A reader, a writer, my whole life.

When I was about eleven, my dad’s job brought us to Washington State. We lived in Kirkland, Washington, which sits on the banks of Lake Washington. It’s really pretty – you’d like it. I went to Lake Washington High School, and was outwardly involved and inwardly a loner, an observer (I wrote it all down, too, gang. Kidding!!!) I was very involved in drama and plays and public speaking. And I was writing, although not too many people knew it. Bad poetry, lyrics, and short stories that only my mother cared about (thanks, Mom).

When I was nineteen, my parents divorced, which was hard, but I survived and you will too, and besides, it gives you something to blame them for later if you end up in therapy. I went to Bellevue Community College for the first two years after high school so I could afford my education. I worked on the newspaper there, and got my first set of lyrics published with a musician friend of mine then, too. While at BCC, I wrote my first story of any merit, at least according to my professor, who showed it around to the department and still has it to this day. I know this because she and several other professors and teachers have shown up at my author events. They sit in the front row and beam proudly. Writers need lots of people who believe in them, and this encouragement really made me feel writing was a possibility for me.

I didn’t have the courage to study creative writing in college. I pictured classes full of people wearing berets and dressed in all black, talking about Turgenev, which is not a powerful shower cleaner, even if it sounds like one. I worried I wouldn’t have the talent, since I didn’t own a beret and never wanted one. So I studied journalism. I worked on the radio station, reading the news. I thought journalism would be an easier way to find work, but what I learned more than anything was that I wasn’t a journalist. I fell in love with playwriting while I was at “The U,” and wrote several plays, one of which gained a bit of recognition in a Staley Kramer playwriting competition. I wrote a few stories, one that a professor thought to be quite accomplished, except that I gave a character the last name of a disease, and she said that was a bad idea. She was right.

After I earned my B.A. degree from the University of Washington, I got married, won the Nobel prize (just seeing if you were still awake) and started working for The Learning Annex. I was there for a few years, until my daughter was born. During her babyhood, and after the birth of my son two and a half years later, I wrote stories, more lyrics, and a few plays. When my son was two, I got serious about writing. I didn’t want to be one of those people who talked about their dream but never did anything about it. That seemed deeply sad. I worried I would end up at the counter at Denny’s eating pie and watching rain drizzle miserably down the windows. So I made a decision: I would do it, and wouldn't quit until I was published. I made a vow to myself. No giving up, no going back. It was a bigger vow than I ever realized. I also had an education to make up for, since I’d only taken one creative writing class in my life (and still have only taken one creative writing class in my life). I read everything on the craft, and took notes on books I read, and studied. And I started writing seriously. The first book I wrote was 600 pages long, which shows right there that I had a lot to learn. I learned as I went.

The second book I wrote brought me offers from several agents, which was pretty amazing. But it wasn’t until I wrote three more books that THE QUEEN OF EVERYTHING (my fifth) was bought by Simon & Schuster. I’ve run out of fingers long ago to count the number of rejections I’d gotten over the years. After QUEEN was published to (thank goodness) wonderful reviews, it made the cover of The Bulletin For The Center of Children’s Books, and had several starred reviews, as well as other honors. HONEY, BABY, SWEETHEART was published next, and it was only out a few months before it was nominated for a National Book Award. It, too, has received many honors in addition to the NBA finalist citation – it won the PNBA Best Book Award, the Washington State Book Award, and was a PEN award finalist, and was a finalist for the California Young Readers Medal, among others. Many more titles followed HONEY, including WILD ROSES, THE NATURE OF JADE, THE SECRET LIFE OF PRINCE CHARMING and STAY. 2012 brought THE STORY OF US, and in 2013, my first book for adults, HE’S GONE, was released from Random House, followed by more books for adults, young adults, and middle grade readers, including THE LAST FOREVER, THE SECRETS SHE KEEPS, ESSENTIAL MAPS FOR THE LOST, as well as A FLICKER OF COURAGE. My most recent novel for young adults, A HEART IN A BODY IN THE WORLD, received a Printz Honor in 2019.

People always ask me now what my “secret” is, how I got published, how it is that I write in a way that people seem to appreciate. My only real “secret” is that I was one of those kids who loved books. I still am one of those kids who loves books. I am still a very regular library goer, too - usually once a week, even though I also buy and am given many, many books. I’ll read anything – fiction, non-fiction, biographies, magazines, cereal boxes. I am a reader first, before I am a writer. I would say I’m self-taught, but it’s not true – all my years as a reader, all of those authors I read, taught me. Mrs. Piggle Wiggle taught me, and Tess of the D’Urbervilles did, and so did Encyclopedia Brown and The World according to Garp. So many beautiful teachers!

I moved from my longtime home in Issaquah, Washington (the setting “Nine Mile Falls” of many of my books), and I now live in Seattle. I’ve gone from a house in the mountain foothills with its salmon-running creek and deer, rabbits, and quail, to a life beside Lake Washington, with the ever-changing art-work of skies, eagles, and seaplanes. No paragliders get stuck in trees here, but the crow commute that I see every morning and every night inspired WHAT’S BECOME OF HER, my third book for adults.

Besides writing, I lecture and do author-related appearances, and in my spare time (ha) I love to take photographs, and spend time with my kids and my husband and my grand-dog, Max (my favorite people in the world). I also like to swim, collect antiquarian books, and hike (even if I may need CPR after), and I love the library, art history, and the Renaissance. I know nothing about fine wines, athletes, or quadratic equations. I am notoriously afraid of squirrels and am a lousy speller. My beloved husband and I both hate sushi when most people love sushi, and, with each other, don’t have to pretend to understand foreign art films. There are a million more reasons why I adore him. He also puts up with my reading addiction, because what I mostly do in my spare time is what I’ve always done, ever since those early days in California: I read – always, always read. I read everything and more, devouring books like the essential life-stuff they are and have always been to me.

Q&A with Deb:

A few questions for Deb, posed by readers, reporters, law-enforcement officials, and other inquisitive types…

Tall, Double Tall, or Grande?

Grande. And one of those cookies with the chunks of butterscotch and white chocolate.

Do you know just how fast you were going, Miss?

Oh shit.

How much of your books are based in real life?

Okay. Let’s first be clear, after THE QUEEN ON EVERYTHING: MY FATHER DIDN’T MURDER ANYONE! He was a normal parent! He taught me to drive! (Sorry, Dad, maybe you don’t want to take blame for that). He taught me how to use power tools! (Okay, Dad. Maybe you don’t want to take blame for that, either). Actually, this is something everyone wants to know - how much of this stuff happened to YOU? The people who really know you are the ones that ask it even MORE. What are you guys so nervous about? Didn’t I promise I wouldn’t write about that time with the women’s nylons? I think every writer uses the experiences or just the emotion of their own lives. I always try to make people feel better by saying the only character I’ve ever taken directly from life was my old neighbor’s dog. But really, you take bits and parts of things that are real, stuff from your history, stuff that happened long ago or just yesterday, thoughts, memories, etc. etc. and weave them together with a dose of the mysterious alchemy that happens with every book. What’s most important for me is finding an emotional truth that resonates.

How do you keep so amazingly fit and in good shape?

Okay, so no one has ever really asked me this.

Are the locations in your book real places?

Parrish Island, which appears in many of my books, isn’t a real place, but it’s based on several San Juan islands in Washington State sort of mixed together. It’s got a lot of Friday Harbor in it, with some Orcas Island thrown in, and a pinch of Lopez. The islands are amazing places, with great whale watching. The place where Jackson brings Jordan, that stone table, is actually there in Friday Harbor, as is the hotel (and the rabbits!). Nine Mile Falls, which also appears in many of my books, is based on the town of Issaquah where I used to live. “Issaquah” is a Native American word meaning “hard to pronounce and impossible to spell.”

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

I think being a writer is about who you are, more than what you do. It’s a way of looking at the world, a state of observance coupled with a deep need to make sense of the life and the people around you. If this is truly you, you won’t be able to help the desire to write, but you’ll need to learn to write and write well. Read everything you can. That’s the best way to learn – reading the bad stuff, reading the great stuff. Write, write and write some more. Submit your work wherever you can. Try to focus on your own truth, as honesty is your most powerful writing weapon. Being an author is one of the Big Dreams, so if you want to be a writer, have the determination of a dog with a knotted sock. Sink your teeth in and don’t give up. Become who you are, as Nietzsche said.

I want to be a writer. Do I need an agent?

If you have already written a book, and have hopes of being published by a major publisher, then yes.

What do you like most about being a writer?

I like having this place to be honest. It’s a privilege to be able to say what I think and feel. I like the chance to really stop and try to figure things out. It’s cheaper than therapy. And I love being required to live in a way that is more observant. You’ve got to be open to those details that can escape people going about busy lives. You’ve got to notice. Details are what make something vivid and real – oranges in a tree, a yellow dog in a field, what rain smells like. A passing glance, a feather on the ground, what is in someone’s heart. Those inane thoughts we have, sticking your finger in the wax to make those creepy fake fingertips, an expectant sky. Being aware of the details of human experience lead to those moments when you are most alive. I love that as a writer, this is made necessary.

What do you like to read?

Everything. I read fiction, but read a lot more non-fiction. I’ll read just about anything on any topic, especially science, anthropology, art, literature, history. I love essay collections. Well-written memoirs. Any adventure story in icy, Arctic locales. Okay, I’d never read a math book.

What is your favorite book?

This is always such an impossible question to answer. It’s like being asked what your favorite memory is, or friend, or vacation place. Same with music – it’s such a big part of my life I couldn’t pick just one song. But if I were in some kind of Stephen King novel where they tie the author to the bedposts and hold a Butterfinger just out of her reach until she answers, I’d have to give in and say The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis. I still get excited every time they get through the wardrobe and are standing under the lamppost in the snow. After reading it, I always imagined Turkish Delight to be this amazing and wonderful thing until I actually had some. It’s disgusting. Horrible. You’d rather lick the bottom of your shoe. It was so disappointing.

Do you floss regularly?

God, you dental hygienists are pains. You should know we always lie anyway.

Where do you get your ideas?

Writers get asked this all the time, and it always strikes most of us as funny. Also, if we’re being bad friends at a fellow-author’s book signing, we sometimes raise our hands and ask it to be mean (okay, I do this). Where DON’T you get ideas? My real problem is keeping track of all the little slips of paper and gum wrappers and electric bills that I write my ideas on. There are two tips I have regarding remembering your great ideas:

1. Turn on a light when you write something down in the middle of the night. If you scrawl notes in the dark, in the morning that truly profound thought you had and have now forgotten will read something like, “My banana dance in Yugoslav country.”

2. Don’t write down ideas while driving. Enough said.

Did you always want to be a writer?

Yes, I always wanted to be a writer. There was that brief period of wanting to be Nancy Drew. And I began the application process to become an FBI agent, until I realized there was no way I’d ever be able to climb that rope thing. Sometimes I still want to be a cowgirl. My biggest consistent non-writing dream is to be a National Geographic photographer. But writing, being a writer - it’s who I am.

Why is my shirt pink? Why is there white fuzz all over my laundry?

I am sorry. Red t-shirt, Kleenex in robe pocket. It happens.

Various interviews and such…

Talks With Roger (Hornbook): https://www.hbook.com/?detailStory=deb-caletti-talks-with-roger

A Moment With Deb Caletti (John Marshall, Seattle P.I.): https://www.seattlepi.com/entertainment/books/article/A-moment-with-Deb-Caletti-writer-1159408.php

Winter Fireside Moments With Deb Caletti (Seattle P.I.): https://www.seattlepi.com/lifestyle/blogcritics/article/Winter-Holiday-Fireside-Moments-Interview-with-2416090.php

Deb Caletti Steps Outside YA With He’s Gone: https://nwbooklovers.org/2013/07/26/deb-caletti-steps-outside-ya-with-hes-gone/

Leslie Lindsay Interview: https://leslielindsay.com/2013/07/31/write-on-wednesday-interview-with-author-deb-caletti/