Split Just Right (15 page)

In
Hannah, Divided
(2002), I tried my hand at historical fiction, crafting a story of a young math prodigy living in 1930s rural Pennsylvania, who then wins a scholarship to study in Philadelphia. In 2010, I returned to the genre with
Picture the Dead
, collaborating with my friend Lisa Brown, an author and illustrator, on an illustrated novel about Spiritualist photographers in the Civil War era.

In 2005, I received another National Book Award nomination for
Where I Want to Be
, a family-centered psychological drama with paranormal elements. The following year, I published a light, young adult romance titled
My Almost Epic Summer
. I also launched another middle grade series; this one, Vampire Island Stories, is about a family of vegan vampires living in New York City.

Family plays an important role in my fiction, and while I don’t consider myself a fantasy writer, I do enjoy adding a measure of the supernatural to otherwise realistic fiction. This blend runs through a number of my books, namely
The Other Shepards
,
Where I Want to Be, Picture the Dead
, and
Tighter
. I write stories that emphasize our lasting connections to those we have lost, and how our families—past and present—inform our everyday life in ways that can be both startling and steadfast.

In 2007, my husband, Erich, and I traded Manhattan for Brooklyn, where we live very happily with our two young children—a daughter, Priscilla, and a son, Hastings—as well as a ten-pound shih tzu named Edith. Parenthood has inspired me to write for a younger audience, and to that end, I teamed up with the author Courtney Sheinmel to create an early-reader series called Agnes and Clarabelle, forthcoming from Bloomsbury Press, about a pair of two differently anxious friends.

My husband and I both avidly support nonprofit organizations such as the MacDowell Colony, Prep for Prep, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, buildOn, and 826NYC, an after-school tutoring and creative writing center for high school youth, where I sit on the board of directors. I am also a member of the PEN American Center and the Writers Guild of America. Visit me at
www.adelegriffin.com
and on Twitter at @adelegriffin.

My brother Robert and me in Maine in 1976, when I was six years old. Our mother was born in Maine and our grandparents returned there, to the Rangeley Lakes, most summers.

Me in Rhode Island with my brother Geoff in 1981. I was eleven years old and in my Agatha Christie phase. I would read Christie or nothing.

My contribution to my high school arts magazine. I loved to make collages, considering them the highest form of art. I also emulated Victorian gothic romance, and loved historical costumes. Many of my illustrations were wacky, inadvertent mash-ups of period clothing spanning multiple centuries.

My two best friends and me at our high school graduation in 1989. From left to right: Holly, Stephanie, and me.

Even as an adult, I was interested in princess costumes. I made crowns to celebrate Princess Diana’s televised BBC interview in 1995, which my family watched after taking this photo. From left to right: me, my grandmother, my aunt Elena, my niece Kate, my mother, and my aunt Barbara.

A photograph of me with my soon-to-be husband, Erich, on the morning of our wedding, August 16, 1997.

Me with Robert Cormier in 1998. Cormier was my childhood idol, and his novel
I Am the Cheese
is one of my favorite books of all time.

My first author visit, for
Rainy Season,
in 1996 at my alma mater, the Agnes Irwin School in Rosemont, Pennsylvania.

Me with my daughter, Priscilla, wearing our glasses at my parents’ home in Pennsylvania.

Me with my husband and our children, Priscilla and Hastings, on the ferry to Fire Island, where we go every summer. This photo was taken in summer 2012, when Hastings was just one month old.

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