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Rachel Vail

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Birth
I was born on July 25, 1966, in NEW YORK CITY, and grew up in New Rochelle, NY, with my mother, my father, and my younger brother Jon.

Interests
Some details, I do know-I was very into reading and theater, so I read every book I could get my hands on and took acting workshops and auditioned for every play in school, camp, or the community. I played Peter Pan, Miss Hannigan in Annie, Benny Southstreet in Guys and Dolls, the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz, and lots of extremely memorable chorus parts-for instance, I was "girl number two" in Fiddler on the Roof-the one who said "We heard about your sister, Chava". I didn't care -I just wanted to be on stage. Waiting backstage before curtain call, after giving my all in a performance, was the best feeling I knew. In seventh grade I started taking magic lessons, and by eighth grade I was making all my own spending money by performing at kids' birthday parties as a clown named Tallulah. I liked the freedom of wearing all that grease-paint-I could be as wacky and un-cool as I wanted. I tried dance but felt so clumsy. I faked a sprained ankle to get out of the recital. I took voice lessons which made me a little light-headed and both saxophone and piano, neither of which I ever practiced. I did well in school but started a lot of my work at the last minute, in a crazy mad dash, so that it was never late but there were usually careless errors or areas I had to fudge. I had this idea that to work hard at something was sort of a negative, an admission that I didn't have natural talent. If I wasn't going to be Mozart and have the music channeled through me from God, then I was just embarrassing myself by all that workmanlike effort. I didn't get over that idea until after college, by the way.

Career Ambitions
I never really planned to be a writer. I planned to be a financial wizard after learning about option-spreading at age 10, then a poet after discovering Shakespeare at 11. After overhearing "the real power is held by the lobbyists" on a class trip to Albany, I planned to become a lobbyist. Secretly, of course I always imagined myself as an actress, but that didn't seem hard or important enough, and also I worried I wasn't naturally gifted enough.

Parents
My parents were always great. I liked to make them proud, and they trusted me and supported my efforts and interests, which was sometimes weirdly tough. There was so little for me to rebel against.

As a Kid
When people ask me what I was as a kid, I always feel like my answer is at best incomplete.What are you like, as a kid? I'm still trying to figure out what I'm like as an adult.

Socially
Well, things went in waves. Sometimes I felt very "in", very aware of and tied in to the whole scene, excited by who liked whom, all the gossip, some of it less than kind. Other times I felt so alone-like there was nobody like me, nobody who liked me, nobody to talk to. And much of the time it was somewhere in between. A best friend when I was lucky, and a few people in each crowd I liked and who liked me. I resisted being classified as a brain or a jock or alternative or popular-too limiting. I would have to shut down too many parts of myself to be just one type.

Adolescence
I went through a very intense stage in middle school . I worried about being too ordinary. I also worried about being too weird. I also worried about changing states of matter, my inability to be morally certain, ignorance , and making a fool of myself.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/rachel...

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Rachel Vail

Rachel Vail

Books from Rachel Vail

Well, That Was Awkward

School, Drool, and Other Daily Disasters

Unfriended

You, Maybe: The Profound Asymmetry of Love in High School

Kiss Me Again

Places I Never Meant to Be: Original Stories by Censored Writers

Brilliant

Sometimes I'm Bombaloo

Shells, Smells, and the Horrible Flip-Flops of Doom

Wonder

Do-Over

What Are Friends For?

A Is for Elizabeth

Inseparables: Tienes que entenderlo

Inseparables: Si tu supieras

Big Mouth Elizabeth

Daring to Be Abigail

Please, Please, Please (The Friendship Ring, #2)

Daring to Be Abigail

Lucky