I'm very much a people-pleaser, and with a book out, I had to learn that you can't please everybody with your book.

I don't set up screenings. I can barely plan my kid's birthday party.

As a reader and as a viewer, usually when I watch a movie, I'm caught up enough in the movie that I'm not breaking it down to the details anyway.

I like the idea of a broader range of people feeling seen.

What I need, as a reader, is a character with a heart and a voice and a pulse. I need a character so vivid and so specific that she doesn't feel like fiction.

When I read, I don't need a character to look like me, act like me, or think like me. I don't need to have my heart broken. I don't need to be surprised or amused or challenged, and I don't need to swoon.

I actually don't know much about Jaclyn Moriarty's process or where her stories come from or who inspired her characters. I just know that reading her books feels like sitting with friends. Her characters feel alive.

It's funny, the moments that shape you as a writer.

One of the things that 'Love, Simon' is doing that hasn't been done before is it's a gay teen rom-com with a mainstream wide release and the backing of a studio that previous gay rom-coms have not had. I'm really excited by that.

'Simon' was always a word-of-mouth book. When it came out in 2015, I don't know that anybody thought that 'Simon' could be mainstream. Publisher Harper Collins loved it in-house, but it wasn't a lead title. Nobody is more surprised than me that it's a film. It's the little book that could.