Who Knew That Being Geeky Was Professionally Advantageous?

Some people ask me why I bother writing "genre" books, as if this is a lesser sort of thing. This is a comment folks also make about writing YA as opposed to writing something respectable like Adult literature. (Lucky me that I write genre YA fiction, huh?) But here's the thing: I think that genre books are some of the most engaging stories out there because of their inherent ability to take a step away, create some illusion of safe distance, and then one-two punch readers by testing their bo...