Pay It Forward Author Week: Leah Clifford

For those of you who have been tuning in this week, you'll remember that we've teamed up with some amazing writers at various stages in their journey to publication to spread good vibes and inspiration across the blogosphere. Some of these authors have book deals. Some of them have agents. All of them have "made it."

We hope you enjoyed our first two interviews with the fabulous Kirsten Hubbard and Carrie Harris! Today we've got fellow Ohioan Leah Clifford. [Insert awkward plea for Leah to come hang out with us at one of our YA Book Clubs HERE]

Leah is repped by the inimitable Rosemary Stimola and her debut novel A TOUCH MORTAL will be published by Greenwillow in Winter 2011. So far for jobs she's sold corn at a roadside stand, been a pizza delivery girl, a camp counselor, an extreme cave tour guide, a flight attendant, a waitress (x3), a grocery store clerk and a writer. Out of all of them, writing has been the most fun. She's pretty sure she's gonna stick with it.

1. Tell us about your book in 140 characters or less.

Eden, trapped btwn life & death, can kill others like her. The Fallen get wind, and she has to get help from angels that betrayed her before

(PS. I hate you both so hard for that :P )

2. Was there ever a time you felt like giving up? Why didn't you?

Oh god yes. There were a few months in the middle of writing the first draft where I really considered moving on to a different project, but I just couldn't let it go. I also owe quite a few people huge debts for letting me blabber endlessly about the same plotholes for those months and still pushing me to finish. It's not easy being friends with a writer...

3. What has been the hardest part of your road to publication so far?

Losing friends? lol Just kidding. I'd say every part is different, and when you're going through it each part is hardest. Right now I'm working on edits, so today's answer would be edits.

4. Super secret bonus question: Twizzlers or M&Ms?

My nearly empty 56 oz bag of M&Ms wishes it was Twizzlers.

Ok, now you must go to Goodreads and update your little TBR list to include all of these amazing authors, okay? And be sure to hop on over tomorrow for even more author porn. And don't forget to check out the blogs below for even more interviewy (we like adjectives so much that we create new ones!) goodness.

Elana Johnson

Beth Revis

Leah Clifford

Victoria Schwab

Kirsten Hubbard

Carrie Harris

Kim Harrington

Suzette Saxton/Bethany Wiggins

Amy Holder

Kathy McCullough

Tiffany Schmidt

Susan Adrian

Dawn Metcalf

Gretchen McNeil

P.S. MAJOR props again to Elana Johnson for organizing this bad ass event. She STILL rocks! And yes, we might be sort of kissing her ass because we get to be interviewed on her blog this Friday. Yeah, we're shameless. Deal with it.