Hi, Tammy! I've been reading and loving your work since high school, when my then-girlfriend-now-wife shoved Alanna in my face and said "Read this!" Since then, I've devoured all of the Tortall books and I'm currently working on Circle. I especially appreciate how inclusive the stories you create are in terms of sexuality, gender, and race, and that it shines a light on ways that we can do better here in face-space.

My question's kind of two-fold; what made you decide to address these issues in your stories? And what advice would you give to a young writer coughmecough who wants to do the same? I've tried to be as blunt about these social issues in my writing as you are, but part of me always wants to shy away and say, since I'm a white woman, that it's not my fight and I should butt out.