Sandra Scoppettone Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Interview

Sandra Scoppettone answers questions about her books and her long career as an author.

Your earliest novels were for young adults and focused on societal issues or problems. For over 20 years you've written exclusively about crime. Explain your transition from one to the other. They seem quite far apart.
It wasn't actually a transition as you'll see. I was known for writing 'hot' topics for YAs. But that was never my intention. I wrote about what interested me. Alcoholism, rape, homosexuality, MS, all for specific reasons. Over the same period when I was writing YAs I wrote three crime novels for adults. One was a private eye novel but it was under a pseudonym. The last YA I wrote was a mystery. It was called Playing Murder. I enjoyed writing this even though after 100 pages I realized I'd killed the wrong person and had to start all over. I think that was the first novel I wrote on a computer. By then I felt I'd said all I wanted to in and to YAs. So having written three crime-related novels already it was a natural progression for me to switch over.

Were you always fascinated by crime? I don't know if fascinated is the right word. I do remember that in the Sunday newspaper every week there was a feature called Justice Triumphs and it ...