

Your main character, Rahul, is extremely good at math. It’s one of the reasons a small, Midwest town felt right for this book. That was a long time ago, but in a lot of smaller towns in America and in the Midwest, I think that’s probably still true and still a challenging situation for kids. At the time that I was growing up, no one was talking about being gay. But even there, in a much bigger city than Wabash, I still had a sense of being different.

I eventually moved to Tampa, Fla., where I spent my middle and high school years. Those years were magical-full of riding bikes in the neighborhood and leaving doors unlocked and walking to school. When I about two years old, we moved to Wabash, Ind., and lived there until I was about seven. Tell us a little bit about yourself as a kid.
