the beginning of after by jennifer castle

It’s My Life became an amazing community, and I loved writing about all the things that are important to tweens. I was fortunate to receive a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to create a website called It’s My Life, which would be a safe place on PBS Kids for young people ages 9 to 13 to explore topics like dealing with divorce, bullying, puberty, and depression.

Eventually I taught myself HTML and how to make stuff for the then-brand-new Internet thing, and started running the website for the PBS teen documentary series “In the Mix.” I enjoyed working in interactive media, which was a lot more rewarding than writing movie scripts that would never get made. While I was waiting for the proverbial big break, I worked at temp jobs, a film studio, and a celebrity publicity firm before going it freelance as an advertising copywriter. After college, I craved adventure and maybe a little glamour too, so I moved to Los Angeles and learned how to write for film and television. I grew up in a small town north of New York City in Westchester County and then studied English Lit and Creative Writing at Brown University.

From that poetry-spewing, whopper-telling little kid, I took the long way around to being an author, but I don’t regret the journey. When I was a child, I spent a lot of time pecking out poems on my dad’s typewriter, making up stories on long school bus rides, and constantly lying about stuff.

The beginning of after by jennifer castle