Q&A with Adele Griffin

Adele Griffin is a two-time National Book Award finalist and the author of a number of middle grade and young adult novels, including her latest, “All You Never Wanted.” Her works include “The Julian Game,” “Tighter,”  “Picture the Dead,” and coming this fall, “Loud Awake & Lost.” She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., with her husband and two children.

What are the best books you’ve read recently?
My brother got me a book he loved, “The Greater Journey: Americans In Paris” by David McCullough, and I’m finishing. It’s a lot of interesting information and I went slow. And I just read Meg Wolitzer’s “The Interestings,” which was amazing, I was rabid for that. In YA, I’m delightedly reading “Revenge of the Girl with the Great Personality” by Elizabeth Eulberg and then I will start “17 & Gone” by Nova Ren Suma.

What was your favorite book as a child?
Too many to count! A new favorite every week! But one I rediscovered last month is a book called “Searching for Shona” by Margaet J. Anderson. I got a copy off eBay, and it was just as oddly dark and fascinating as I remembered.

Why do you enjoy attending book festivals, either as a presenter or audience member?
I love the way time is so easy. Really on both ends, presenter or member. You float from here to there, attend what you’ve earmarked, make sure you’re present for you own event (!) then flow back into the crowd. Maybe you’ll eat something you wouldn’t in your regular life, like a couple of lemon squares, and you meet new people, you reconnect and explore. And it’s all very chill and even throughout the day.

Have you been to the D.C. area before? If so, what is your favorite thing about it?
I lived in D.C.! My dad taught economics at Georgetown, which was also where he went undergrad. My mom still talks about how tiny the apartment was. With two kids under age two. Eek! I loved going back to the little restaurants bars my parents haunted when they were college kids — like Chadwicks and The Tombs.

What is the most difficult, or challenging, aspect of being a writer?
I’m going to go with time management. I love writing, and I love the process of a book once it lands with editorial. But just forcing that time block to happen — the quiet hours spent in solitude working through your story — can be a real challenge.