Life After the ‘Princess Diaries’

Meg Cabot is chick-lit royalty. And that's not just because she pens the well-known "Princess Diaries" series, which Walt Disney Pictures turned into two movies starring Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews. The 41-year-old author has sold more than 15 million copies of her 50-plus books, including "Queen of Babble," "Every Boy's Got One," "Big Boned" and "Size 14 Is Not Fat Either." On March 1, Scholastic comes out with her new series, "Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls," her first foray into tween tales. NEWSWEEK's Karen Springen talked with the prolific, funny author about her latest novel, among other things.

NEWSWEEK:  You came up with the idea for the Allie Finkle series when you wrote about your fourth-grade teacher for an anthology by David Levithan, and he suggested you write for tweens, right?
Meg Cabot: I just kept thinking about it. Fourth grade was a very pivotal time in my life. The whole Allie Finkle story was true. Moving and starting a new school was horrifying.

Where did you move?
I moved from the suburbs into town, in Bloomington, Ind. My dad taught at the university. Fourth grade was really traumatic. I started looking back at my old diaries that I kept when I was that age.

Is Allie based on you?
She is. She's a little feistier. I had two little brothers. My dad--he's deceased now--taught the same thing as her dad, computers. It was actually decision sciences. I still don't understand what it is. My mom was the same thing Allie's mom was--college advising. My mom also worked for Planned Parenthood for a while. She was an illustrator. There were bizarre birth-control devices around the house so she could draw them. That won't be in the Allie Finkle books!

How many Allie Finkle books are you planning to write?
I've written three, and there are three more planned.

What about kids in your own life?
I know a lot of people with 9-year-olds. I love kids. My husband and I have cats. I've been waiting for my biological clock to kick in, and it never has. My brother has little girls, and I'm an excellent aunt. They're only 3 and 2.

Are you planning to write more "Princess Diaries" stories, or just to work on Allie Finkle and your other new series, "Airhead," due in May, about a tomboy who becomes a supermodel?
I'm writing the very last "Princess Diaries" book, No. 10, right now. I have another series I'm going to be doing for Scholastic, too. The first book is called "Abandon." It's a retelling of the myth of Persephone, set in modern-day high school. It should be coming out fall of 2009.

What were your favorite books as a kid?
I think "A Wrinkle in Time." I loved that one. I also loved the old classics like "Little Women." I loved sneaking my parents' books--my dad's spy novels and my mom's, like Erma Bombeck. My parents didn't mind.

Unlike your teen novels, "Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls" has no kissing—yet. Will Allie age throughout the series and get to kiss?
She's definitely going to get into fifth grade and possibly sixth grade. She's going to get a crush eventually. I don't know about kissing. There's going to be a kissing controversy in one of the upcoming books. It's more like catch a boy and kiss him, which happens on the playground.

How is she going to grow up?
Really slowly. It's not going to be like Harry Potter, where he grows a year with every book. In the six books I have planned now, she's still in fourth grade, if that tells you anything. I managed to keep Princess Mia in high school for like 16 books.