"One thing I would like to say is that I'm a lesbian," proclaims Sandra Scoppettone in an interview for Authors and Artists for Young Adults (AAYA). "I mean, that should be clear. I also want to say that I've been with the same person for twenty years--I think it's important for people to know that it can be done." Author of both young adult novels that deal with homosexuality, alcoholism, and murder, and adult novels that depict a hallucinatory seventeen-year-old, a single-parent male detective, and a witty lesbian private investigator, Scoppettone has been accused of writing about such controversial topics merely for the money. "But it isn't true," she asserts in Speaking for Ourselves. "The books I've written have been about important issues in my own life or in the lives of people I've known." Among the personal topics covered in Scoppettone's novels are alcoholism, homosexuality, and incest...