What's it about?

17 year-old Beamer Flynn. She was raised by hippie parents and all their hippie friends in a commune in northern Minnesota and now she's fed up with how much and how often all those old friends get into her business. Also, there's this romance thing with a couple of guys, Martin and Andy.

Where did the idea come from?

When I was growing up I used to love to fish, and when my family would vacation in northern Minnesota I’d spend a lot of time on the dock or in a rowboat fishing. This meant I needed bait, which was available in town (Hackensack, Minnesota) at a place called Cline’s Minnows. I loved the bait shop. Years later when I was writing, the memory of this favorite place (now remodeled into a modern retail operation and called Swanson’s) served as the starting point—the "What If?—for my book: What if the family business was a bait shop?

Is this one your favorite?

Yes! I was pretty clueless about novel writing when I wrote this book; still, it turned out very nicely. I’m proud of that. I also love how Everybody’s Daughter evokes my beloved north woods. Final reason: I like Beamer a lot.