I would hate to be in high school now. Psychologists talk about the 'imaginary audience' that teens seem to feel they have around them and that makes them think they have to keep up their image all the time. Now with Facebook and MySpace and 24/7 online access, that imaginary audience has become real.
Teens are the target demographic for everything in pop culture.
I started to get quite bad panic attacks when I was in my late teens, and I began running because I wanted to do everything I could before going down the medical route.
Certainly working with teens keeps me up to date with language and with certain kinds of thinking. I often feel like I have to go back to that 17-year-old Chris Crutcher, and that forms the core voice. I can draw on teens from 1964 to 2001 to find a part of the voice I need.
I think the value in books like mine, and a great number by other talented writers, is in the ability to bring dark subjects into the open where they are not so dark, where they can be talked about and considered by teens and adults alike.
I am for anything that makes teens visible in an honest way... in other words, anything that represents them the way they are, positively or negatively.
The truth is that those who join gangs - more often than not they are young men in their later teens - often do come from the most difficult family backgrounds, from an environment where they feel neglected and unwanted. Gang membership can bring a perverse sense of belonging which they may not have ever got at home.