The same way as any other tremendously bored suburban kid growing up in the ’90’s. I read Harry Potter, thought it was the most fantastic thing in the world, and decided that I had to become a writer. I wrote a bunch of books until, finally, one of them seemed to suck less than the rest. I emailed a query letter to a dozen literary agents the summer after I graduated from high school telling them about this book, and a few of them asked to read it. One of those agents offered to represent me, and she sold the novel to an editor at Random House four months later.

I sold my first book when I was 18. It was published when I was 20.

I try to keep my Facebook account personal (I am very, very bad at doing this), but there is a Facebook page here, which you can “like.”

I don’t use online chat. If you need to reach me, try twitter! Or, drop me an email through my contact page and I’ll reply back. Email is easier for me because I can reply when I have time. My Skype account is for phone calls to friends who live abroad, so please don’t be offended if I do not accept your request.

Please contact me through my contact page.

Yes, yes and yes! I love visiting schools, libraries, bookstores and conferences. You can request more information and inquire as to availability via email. Visit my contact page!

You can preview the first two chapters of Knightley Academy for free here.

Yes. I am working on one that is set in the subdivisions of Southern California and concerns severed heads, debate tournaments, flash mobs, poodles, and buried treasure. Also, one that concerns tuberculosis sanatoria and national health care.

I did the graphics and content, Kaleb Nation did the code (edit: he claims he *didn’t* do the code, which is just like Kaleb. Sigh. I suppose some mystery person did the code, but whenever I have problems, I bug him about them and he fixes it? Yeah, that is probably more accurate).

I wrote my undergraduate thesis on the gentleman’s detective in Victorian London who settled private scandals outside of the public eye through research, disguise and inquiry. I was forever doodling “Henry Grim, Knight Detective?” in the margins of my research. My poor 19th century research thesis! I think the thing is still sulking in a corner somewhere, upset that I ran off to London with its more exciting cousin, the historical novel, the first chance I got!

I had the terrible luck one summer to be the only girl in a mechanical engineering lecture. I was supposed to spend my afternoons deriving equations, but I used to sneak off to a cafe and work on this novel about a group of misfits at a boarding school for knights. Simon & Schuster bought the series with about 75 pages written, just as I was about to graduate. I moved to London’s East End and had 3 months to finish writing the book. I was horribly frantic about it. I wrote Knightley 2 DURING VIDCON. Obviously I wrote it at other times, but that generally encapsulates what happened there. Picture a hotel room filled with youtubers jumping on the beds, and me huddled in the corner, typing and muttering to myself about secret princes and battle societies.

I think the setting chose me, really. I’ve always been a bit obsessed with Victorian London, boarding schools, knights, Harry Potter, detective stories, ethics and moral obligation, and those bleak dystopian novels. I suppose if you took everything jumbled together inside my head and turned it into a setting, you’d probably get something like “Knightley Academy” every time. I suspect ‘alternate Victorian era boarding schools’ is my default setting.

Actually, A few months after I finished writing the first book, I fell into a school situation and a group of friends eerily similar to the world I’d just created. It shook me profoundly that such a thing was even possible. And yes, I do have friends named Adam and Rohan, who were, at one point, roommates. This is purely coincidental.

It was published on June 28, 2011.

When I wrote Knightley, I wrote the book that I wanted to write, in a way that was entertaining to me. In my opinion, the books are fun and exciting for younger readers, but the ideas about war, religious tolerance, social classes and political obligations presented in Knightley can best be enjoyed by readers who usually prefer teen fantasy titles. Most of the time, when I hear from readers, they’re in high school or college. I’m told that reading Knightley is an excellent break from studying for a Diplomatic History/British Colonialism final.

Currently, there are either three or four books planned for the series, depending on whether or not we wind up doing a series of graphic novels to continue Henry’s adventures.  I’m not following Henry’s school years, though, and the reason for that becomes apparent in the second book.

Hopefully! Film rights are currently being packaged with producer Andrew Panay in order to further develop the franchise for the big screen.

I currently use a Canon 60D with an E-FS 15-85mm lens. My older videos are shot on either a Canon VIXIA HF-S 100 or a Flip Mino HD.

I currently use Adobe Premiere Pro CS 5.5, plus Photoshop and After Effects. I used to edit in Final Cut Express 4. Music is done in Logic Studio Pro.

My trusty Canon 60D, which is an HDSLR.

I emailed them asking if they would promote a contest I was having on my YouTube channel. They looked at the episode recap videos I had been making for fun and asked me to host episode recaps for their website.

Yes. And the writers, producers, etc.

Yes, for the episode reviews.

Come to a BlogTV show! Hang out with me on Twitter! Make a Tumblr. Watch the videos! Buy the shirts! Comment on the Facebook page! Oh, and read the books? It’s very easy. You will have GOODTIMESFUNTIMESAWESOMETIMES. There are a lot of ways to interact with/get involved. We Haberdashers (oh yes, I am calling all of you by that preposterous name, too) support charity projects, have contests, goof around on BlogTV shows, and generally are awesome people who love literature and are quite friendly.

These are inside jokes that stem from BlogTV, YouTube and Twitter.

When my publisher bought the Knightley Academy series, I was a college student who wrote for a popular, terribly inappropriate gossip website and had recently finished a stint on a 21+ national stand up comedy tour. It didn’t seem appropriate to publish a children’s book under my name. We never anticipated that, by recording myself talking to a video camera, I would inadvertently gain an online following of thousands.

Violet Haberdasher is my long-lost Victorian pen name. She is credited for writing the Knightley Academy series (she is very smug that we do not share a byline). She does not have any social media accounts and does not interact with readers over the internet. She visits elementary and middle schools, writes books, and occasionally consents to interviews. Everything she says is appropriate for ages 8 and up, just like the label on the Knightley Academy books.