Cecil Castellucci is the author of the novels for young adults Boy Proof, The Queen of Cool, Beige and Rose Sees Red. She is also the writer of the graphic novel The Plain Janes (which launched the DC Comics Minx imprint) and its sequel Janes in Love. She is the 2007 recipient of the Shuster Award for Best Canadian Comic Book Writer.

In addition to writing books, she writes plays, makes movies, does performance pieces, and still occasionally rocks out. Born in New York City to French Canadian parents, she is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada. Currently, she lives in Los Angeles.

I knew that I wanted to become a writer the moment that I saw Star Wars. When Darth Vader went spinning off into outer space, when Luke was about to blow up the Death Star, I was hooked. I understood that stories could continue and that it was someone's job to write those stories. I knew immediately that I wanted to grow up to tell stories.

Writing for young people is very exciting. First off, I fell in love with books and stories when I was a young adult so for me, it's kind of like a love letter to that time. Second off, young characters are very interesting because they are going through a lot of firsts and they are really deciding what kind of a human being they are going to be. That is a pretty fertile time in terms of the stakes being super high, and for an author, that is irresistible.

It really kind of depends. Inspiration is sort of an elusive and tricky thing to talk about. Usually it's not one thing. It's more of a confluence of things that come together and sort of present themselves to you as asking an interesting artistic question and then you kind of follow the thread. Anything goes when it comes to inspiration! You never know how the synapses are going to fire and open up a whole new world of ideas. And you never know which idea is going to be like, "You must write me!"

The cool thing about reading those classics, even the ones that make you want to stick a fork in your eye out of boredom, is when they are fractured and reinvented in more modern retellings, because then you are in on the joke. For example, Emma [by Jane Austen] was adapted into the movie Clueless, and it's funnier when you've read the novel.

I think that it's obvious that not all stories are going to speak to you, but it's probably certain that at least a few classics will speak to you. The trick is to find the ones that do, and love those.

Books tell you when they want to be read, and even if you have to suffer through it for class, remember to try it again later on, because you might be ready for it then. And if there is one that you do like now, love it and love it and love it.

Be yourself. You are just great the way you are.