Novelist Meg Cabot has an interview with Laini Taylor, whose YA novel Lips Touch was recently a National Book Award Finalist.

In it, Laini talks about her background in both writing and art–she majored in English but also went to art school:

Laini: Writing was my first love. When I look back now, I can see that my whole art journey was really an elaborate procrastination from writing. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, and in college I majored in English and took writing workshops, planning (in the vaguest possible way) to take the publishing world by storm after graduation.

Laini: Well. There was one small problem. I didn’t actually write very much. Minor detail! I thought about writing a lot, but actual words on the page? Not so much. Writing was really hard, so, out of avoidance, I began to do art instead. It started as a hobby, but I got obsessed, and within a couple of years I was applying to art schools. It was years before I got back to writing seriously, and I can’t help but imagine all the books I might have written in that time. Still, I’m glad my life took that path. Art has been a great second career AND I met my husband in art school!

She also talks about her heroes, including Lady Oscar from a Japanese cartoon she watched as a kid (”She was Marie Antoinette’s kick-ass female bodyguard and she dressed and fought like a man but she was beautiful and had a great love story.”), and how she deal with rejection as a writer.

But. I have another way of dealing with rejection that’s much more fun: make enemies. Really. I have a secret nemesis, a writer who snubbed me at a convention once (no, I won’t say who!). Since then, I’ve only ever said his/her name in the way Seinfeld says “Newman!”

A great interview. Read it here.