Today's interviewee is most recently the author of Sisterland (now available in paperback!), a novel about psychic twin sisters, one of whom lets her psychic freak flag fly, the other who prefers to fly under the radar. She's also the author of Prep, chosen as one of the Ten Best Books of 2005 by The New York Times, and, as a book about not feeling like fitting in in school, was obviously something I read (and enjoyed) with keen interest. She also wrote  American Wife, the novel based on Laura Bush's life that kept me up late for many nights because it was so addictive. Her nonfiction has appeared in publications like The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, and on "This American Life." You can find out much more about her here.

What were the most fun or memorable moments of research you've done for your novels?
My most recent book, "Sisterland," is told from the perspective of a St. Louis native, but I'm a St. Louis transplant. Therefore, I wanted to do my best to ensure that the local references and details were accurate. I ended up touring the real middle school and high school the twin sisters attend in the book (the people who gave me tours knew I was writing a book), and at one point I found myself in the middle school girls' locker room, taking pictures with my iPhone to basically map out where this emotional showdown between characters would occur. I'd also email someone I met here who'd grown up in the twins' suburb ridiculously specific questions like, "If you were going to go eat frozen yogurt in 1989, where would you go?"

When and how did you discover your interest in Laura Bush, and then realize there was a novel to be written about her?
My interest in her dawned slowly--mostly, right after George W. Bush's election, I just felt alarmed because I'm a Democrat. But as I read various articles, including this one, I realized there was a discrepancy between the most widely-held public perceptions of Mrs. Bush and the reality. In 2004, I read Ann Gerhart's wonderful biography "The Perfect Wife: The Life and Choices of Laura Bush," and I wrote an article for Salon stating that Mrs. Bush's life is like a "great novel"--basically, that dramatic and improbable things have happened to her, and that she herself seems very sympathetic. I would never have used the word "great" if I'd known that I myself would attempt to write that novel, and it didn't occur to me to start until two years later. I unknowingly posted my own novel outline on Salon for the world to see!

How much did fear or doubt about tackling such an ambitious book affect you when you were working on American Wife, and what did you do to stop that from crippling you?
I definitely experienced both fear and doubt, though writing fiction has never been the primary source of fear and doubt in my life. (I'm really averse to that whole macho notion that writing is just so difficult and involves sweating blood. There are far harder professions!). Anyway: I decided not to tell my publisher, or almost anyone, what I was doing, and to just write 100 pages and then assess whether to move forward. I thought that would be the right amount to determine whether the idea was worth pursuing or was just a failed experiment; if it was the latter, I wouldn't have invested too much of my life in it, but I also wouldn't have given up prematurely. This method worked so well that I suspect I'll do it forever. You just can't judge whether to keep going with a novel after 12 or 20 pages (which I say after having thrown in the towel on some exactly then). In general, as I wrote, I tried not to think about how the novel would be received or the "meaning" of what I was doing and just to focus on the characters' behavior and the plot.

Prep was set on the East Coast and American Wife is written from the point of view of somebody who lives in the White House, yet you're a Midwesterner and that's also very present in your writing. How did being from the Midwest inform your view of the East Coast, and vice versa?
I grew up in Cincinnati, and I do have this theory that if you're an Ohioan, you can never take yourself too seriously because certainly other people don't. I find the dismissiveness some coastal dwellers express toward the Midwest to be jaw-dropping (and ignorant) but also kind of amusing. I totally understand the appeal of New York and San Francisco and L.A., by the way--the energy and culture and density of interesting people.

So many of the profiles and interviews I've read about you touch upon your early beginnings as a writer, including your debut in Seventeen. Was it difficult to transition from being known as a "young" writer to being more of a "regular" adult writer? What about writing/publishing has gotten easier as you've matured?
I wasn't really "known" as a young writer--I wasn't at all like Tavi Gevinson or someone like that. Getting an agent, for example, was not effortless. I think the bigger personal challenge came from the fact that, frankly, until I was in my mid-to-late twenties, my writing abilities exceeded my emotional maturity. I could write a sentence that sounded good more than it was insightful (depending upon the subject). I just learned more about life by getting older and having more experiences. I certainly didn't ever, say, work at a fish hatchery so as to acquire material to write about. I was 29 when "Prep" came out, and some of the media coverage did focus on my relative youth. Whenever your age is supposed to be a notable part of your publication experience, it feels a bit gimmicky. As I get older, I feel I can relax into just being a long-term professional writer. Some of my books will, of course, be splashier or more successful than others, but no one book is going to prove anything to me about myself, and I hope that's true for my readers, too. 

If you could deliver a commencement speech today to a batch of creative writing students receiving their MFAs, what are the takeaways you'd give them about the next few years of their lives?
I taught as a visiting professor at the Iowa Writers' Workshop in fall 2010. It was a great experience, but occasionally I did wonder if a few students thought I brought up the business side of publishing too frequently (conversely, a few told me they found it refreshing, but either way, apparently it was atypical--and it wasn't something I brought up consciously). I would recommend to your hypothetical MFA graduates that they realistically think about how they'll support themselves in the next year, five years, and 10 years. If they're not married or parents, how might life change if they are? How and when will they keep writing if their schedules become less flexible? Is it worth, for instance, living in a cheaper and potentially less cool city to keep expenses down? Also, though I fundamentally believe it's the right of anyone to write the book you feel moved to write, it is not the publishing industry's obligation to publish or celebrate your work. Consider whether your primary goal is to express yourself creatively, to find an audience, etc., etc. There's no right answer and no science to figuring out what it would be, but you're also not writing in a vacuum.

You've written very honestly about professional jealousy, which is something that I always assume successful authors must never feel because they're, you know, successful. At this point in your career, do you still experience professional envy, and what does it do to or for you?
Although I'm not immune to jealousy, I spend far more of my life being surprised and grateful for my good fortune than seething with envy. I wonder if you're referring to a 2003 article I wrote for Salon about Nell Freudenberger--it was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek commentary about writerly envy, and while I stand by the contents of the article and have difficulty understanding how anyone could read it as other than self-mocking (versus Nell-mocking), it would be unrealistic of me not to recognize that people's wish to misinterpret the tone or intent of such things is powerful. So in a sense I actually do regret writing it, largely because that article has lingered online in a way that isn't particularly fair to Nell (partly because she herself doesn't have an active online presence). I've met Nell in passing, by the way, and she seems like a very smart, gracious person, in addition to being a talented writer (and the fact of her talent was the important, if overlooked, conclusion of that article). I have a suspicion that she's a far classier person than I am.

What unexpected challenges have popped up when it comes to contemporizing Jane Austen?
The big question is whether or not to include sex scenes and if so, how graphic to be. I wouldn't include them for the sake of including them (in fact, I feel a little queasy or disrespectful to Austen doing so at all), but I do think I've arrived at a narrative reason for one of the couples. That said, I am keeping it less explicit than in my other books--no references to, or even euphemisms for, erections.

I have read that you are officially BFF with Jennifer Weiner; what do you get out of your friendships with female writers? What do you most frequently discuss?
Writing fiction is kind of an odd thing to do, and if you're both people who support yourself by doing it and don't live in New York, you probably have plenty to talk about (you can have plenty to talk about with other writers if only one or two of those things are true). When I get together with other writers of either gender, we often talk shop--complain about the indignities of the writing life, share ridiculous stories, discuss how rapidly publishing is changing with the rise of e-readers, etc. I don't mind the fact that I don't frequently interact with other writers, but the infrequency makes me really appreciate a good writerly gossipfest when it happens.

You've written tongue-in-cheek about sexy author photos, but since you have published so prolifically, what have you learned works for you in terms of posing for and selecting author photos?
I hate having my picture taken or appearing on video, partly because I hate wearing makeup (due to its texture, not on principle). So I will not try to pass myself off as an expert here, but two specific things I've been told by photographers are a) don't oversmile--that is, don't fake-smile as widely as you can, which I fear I was doing for the first 30 years of my life and b) don't stick your chin out. Sometimes I overcompensate with the latter and end up doing a really unsightly version of the Princess Diana tucked ahead/eyes up thing, which I certainly can't pull off the way she did.

What TV shows do you and your husband make time to watch regularly?
We're usually watching two or three shows per season, depending on what's airing. We've just gotten into "The Americans"--I think it took six episodes, but all at once, I was completely hooked. I also love, love, love "Silicon Valley"--the character development and sense of detail and humor are all so great. And we're watching "Louie." We're fans of a lot of the culturally popular shows, like "Downton Abbey," "Girls," etc. I'm not on the cutting edge of television-viewing by any means.

You said in the NYT Books section that you read self-help books on time management and decluttering, so what tips have you found most effective in terms of organizing your life?
The reason I like reading about organization is that I'm not organized, so take this with a grain of salt. Two tips I try and mostly fail to follow are to regularly schedule organization maintenance (I am quite terrible about opening or sorting mail, but I'm trying to do it every Sunday) and to place things in categories and have a location for everything. For instance, keep all stuffed animals in one particular bin. Rocket science, huh? I'm in the middle of reading the newish book "Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time" by Brigid Schulte, and it's fascinating, like porn for a time management devotee. Schulte does an excellent job explaining what social forces (laws, technology, personal pride, etc) have combined to make working mothers and fathers feel like their schedules are out of control. I actually have a much more flexible schedule than most working Americans, so I'm not sure what my excuse is.

What books are your daughters enjoying lately?
My five-year-old and I recently read "The Trumpet of the Swan" by E.B. White, and we both really liked it. My younger sister gave it to us, and I don't remember having read it in my own childhood, though I loved White's "Stuart Little," so I just bought that, too. We all love Dr. Seuss, and it's fascinating to me how prescient a lot of his books are--for example, "Gertrude McFuzz," about a bird who acquires so many feathers (by popping sketchy-seeming pills), feels like a cautionary tale about plastic surgery, and "Bartholomew and the Oobleck" could be about climate change and freakish weather. In case I'm making it seem like we do nothing but read wholesome classics, I'll also admit that we buy plenty of those books that are stories based on a particular episode of a TV show, like "Olivia" (inspired by but separate from the original "Olivia" books by Ian Falconer) or "Jake and the Neverland Pirates." I sometimes think about the authors of those books and how adapting a TV episode into a book became their job and if they have other aspirations, though I'm not wondering condescendingly--there is definitely an art to those reverse adaptations (storyizations?) because some are clumsy and wordy and confusing, while others are streamlined and elegant.

How does it feel to be the 387th person interviewed for Zulkey.com?
Truly magnificent!