If you’re looking for a great middle grade, look no further than Drizzle. I got my hands on an ARC of this and really enjoyed it. I’ve since passed it on to the Grade 6&7 at the school and last time I was there, it was already dog-eared from being passed around. Thanks for stopping by, Kathleen and welcome!

• Kathleen Van Cleve is the author of Drizzle, a book coming out in March about a girl who lives on a rhubarb farm that grows chocolate rhubarb and rains every Monday at one o’clock… until it doesn’t.  Information on her other books and other things can be found at www.kathleenvancleve.com.  She also teaches screenwriting at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Are you a sports fan? Who’s your team?
I love sports.  Love everything about them (except, well, steroids and bad behavior and the Dallas Cowboys.)  I was a rower in high school and college, and have been running mostly on (sometimes off) during the past twenty years. My favorite professional sport to watch is football.  Specifically, I love the Philadelphia Eagles, and oh, how they break my heart.  I’ve loved them since I was a little girl, and went to the games with my brothers and father.  Why can’t they win a Super Bowl?  Why???  And a question: is it better to lose all the time, or get really, really close to winning the Super Bowl and then lose?  Argh!
What’s on your iPod or CD player?
A lot of songs from musicals, like Wicked, Hairspray, Rent (Seasons of Love!), Avenue Q, Chicago, you get the idea; a lot of pop songs – Lady Gaga, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Black Eyed Peas; some rock – Green Day and Bruce Springsteen and The Who; John Legend (This Time!) Barbra Streisand, Jill Sobule, Cat Stevens (If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out) and oh, a bunch of classical music too.  Also songs from the show Glee, and Neil Diamond, and the Beatles.  I have no idea what this list says about me.  It’s giving me a headache.
What were your favorite books when you were a teen?
Books by SE Hinton, (all of them), Agatha Christie (all of them but especially The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and And Then There Were None), Judy Blume (all of them), Susan Isaacs (all of them, especially Shining Through and Almost Paradise), Jane Austen (Emma & Sense & Sensibility and eventually all of them, although I didn’t read the rest when I was a teen), all fairy tales (especially a book of Irish Fairy Tales which I cannot find despite looking everywhere) and Edith Hamilton’s Mythology. I remember thinking I was awed by One Hundred Years of Solitude by Garcia Marquez when I was 18 – which is truly amazing – but I wonder if I really had any idea, then, what was going on in it.  Hmm…
What’s the best piece of advice anyone ever gave you (or you learned from a book)?
After my first novel was bought, my best friend said “Enjoy this.  You’ll write more books, but it will never be like this again.”  She was right and I had a blessed, Cinderella-like experience that will assuredly never happen again. (I wish every writer could be as lucky.)  Another time – long before I started to write – an old boss yelled at me when I said I couldn’t possibly “do” the deal (don’t ask) because both the accountant and the lawyer had said no, it couldn’t happen. He went on to say that they were paid to say no.  “Your job is to make it happen.”  I didn’t know it at the time, but it turned out to be really good advice for all kinds of endeavors.  Finally, when I met my future husband, my now-deceased father (among others) said “marry that man.”  It was the best decision I ever made.
What are you reading now?
A Man for All Seasons (Robert Bolt), The Thief (Megan Whalen Turner), I Am A Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class President (Josh Lieb), and Dominic (William Steig).  The latter is a read-aloud for me and my boys.
What author or book have you recently discovered that you want the world to know about?
I’m on a bit of a reading binge right now, and have been wowed by the following authors, all of whom (through no real intent) women:
Hilary Mantel (Wolf Hall), Katherine Paterson (Bridge to Terebithia – I know I’m late), Sharon Creech (Walk Two Moons – again, late) and Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge.
If you could live anywhere for a year, where would it be?
Rome.  Or Paris, although I’ve never been.  But I think I’d like to live there; it seems kind of perfect.
Do you know how to cook? What’s your specialty?
No, but I’m trying.  The thing is that when you have kids, they want to eat every day.  It’s killing me.  But I do make a pretty mean meatball.  And the three year-old can order takeout.  So we’re doing okay.