Gail Giles, Young Adult Author at Embracing the Child

PLAYING IN TRAFFIC is not what I call a "fluffy bunny" novel; one of those feel good, nothing bad happens kind of books. It starts with the main character's feeling of doom and it gets tougher from there. My books tend to do that. Tough issues, good kids making bad decisions, things goings all kinds of wrong, and some kids making it out and some not making it. People ask if I was repeatedly bounced on my head as a child or toilet trained at gunpoint, but no, I'm a relatively optimistic person.

But—and there's a big one here, I take my position as a writer for young adults seriously. I won't write down, I won't sugar coat the truth, and I won't try to minimize the experiences young people have. And I think the biggest lie we tell young people in some of our books and movies and TV shows is that "everything will turn out all right." You know what? Sometimes it doesn't.

When you are young it's so frustrating to be protected and safe all the time. The lure of wanting to walk on the wild side, to dare, well, to play in the traffic is seductive. I'd like young people to read my books and go all the way through the consequences in fiction rather than deal with those dark impulses in life and wonder what went wrong from behind prison bars.

I wrote PLAYING IN TRAFFIC for the kids like Matt. Not the loners looking for their place in the world; tons of books have been written about them. But those kids that fly under the radar, have friends just like them, and want to ghost their way through high school where they know they will never be given a chance to shine. Lay low and get out and maybe college will offer something else. Not many books are written about these kids because they are so good at camouflage.

I taught high school for twenty years and I got to see the fads and fashions come and go, but I was amazed at how the things that drive kids stay so constant: the need to belong, the need for friends that become a kind of substitute family, the need to leave. Yes. One of the things I was struck with was the teens need to leave. To get OUT. Out of high school, out of "this" town, just out. I saw it as a need for change. Anything would do, as long as it was different. That's what drove Matt, and Skye. They each wanted out of high school, out of their rut, just out of their lives. Each for different reasons and certainly each had a different plan.

I don't assume the Matts' of the world will meet a Skye, especially one with an agenda like the girl in my novel has, but I think there are teens that will be hit with a choice and that choice could be seductively dangerous. Do I think they are lots of Matts' out there? I wrote the book for them. I hope I hear from a few.

PLAYING IN TRAFFIC is a tough book. It was tough to write. I try to give teens a good read and respect their intelligence.

About Gail Giles

Born in Galveston Texas lots and lots of years ago. Lived in LaMarque, Texas for most of my school years and it was a FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS kind of town. Yup, I was a snotty cheerleader. I'm still repenting. But I was also a "drama mama" in all the plays. A strange hybrid.

I still write like an actor. I see things in scenes, like a play. And if I can't say the dialog out loud and make it sound as if it could be spoken easily, then I have to rewrite.

I went East to college. East Texas. Stephen F. Austin State University. Drama and English major. Then I taught school. But I taught Reading. In high school. Remedial Reading for ninth grade students and Speed Reading for college bound students and later Creative Writing.

Then the moving started, to downtown Chicago which I loved, then to upstate Indiana, then to Fairbanks, Alaska, then to Anchorage, Alaska and recently to The Woodlands which near Houston, Texas.

I have one handsome son, one very amusing grandson, one grandson on the way, a charming daughter in law, a total prince of a husband (no kidding), two REALLY BIG dogs (Great Pyrenees) and three cats. (One snooty, one cuddly, one hoodlum.)

Total night owl, I read a lot, a watch TV (love stuff like Buffy and Roswell and Smallville, etc.) and cook more than I should. I have a great office and have to have the dogs and cats around and lots of noise when I work.

And the person that invented the iPod should be made an Emperor. Just an observation.