Going Mobile With Blue Balliett

Did you always write?
Yes. I knew I wanted to be a writer from the time I was 8 years old. I wrote a couple of books of oral history [such as] "Nantucket Ghosts." [Then] I just had to write "Chasing Vermeer." Plus my background was art history. The art world is fascinating because it's so provocative.

Is your next book also going to be about an artist?
I think I'm going to do something different with the next book.

You can't tell us?
Not really.

But you have the idea already?
Yeah. I always have more ideas than I have time and space to put them in.

Do you keep them all in a drawer?
I always carry a little notebook with me. When I talk to kids, I always show them my messy little notebook. I write down ideas all the time. They need to write ideas down when they get them.

How does it work with your illustrator, Brett Helquist, who also illustrated the Lemony Snicket series? Is he the first outside person to read your manuscript?
He doesn't see it until it's pretty much a done deal. He sees it probably when my editor first sees it. He's the one who wanted to plant a coded message in "Chasing Vermeer," and he did a different kind of message in "The Wright 3." He's done something very cool with "The Calder Game," which is also a coded message. He had to work from hundreds of photos of England for this last book, "The Calder Game." He came and stayed with us before he illustrated the book ["The Wright 3"] set in Hyde Park [in Chicago]. He loved the Robie House and was all excited about quirky Hyde Park.

You've talked about your research for "The Calder Game," which included visiting Woodstock, England, three times and eating lots of Cadbury chocolate. Does your family participate in all of this?
The kids are old enough so they're kind of doing their own thing now. My husband loves to do the travel and adventure, and he's a good photographer, so he'll take pictures of anything I want to take pictures of. He's an urban planner. He's the director of research for the American Planning Association here.

I'm assuming you were like the nice teacher, Ms. Hussey, not the mean teacher, Ms. Button, in "The Calder Game"?
Ms. Hussey and I certainly have thinking in common. I'm sure I would have been fired if I did everything Ms. Hussey did! The assignments she gives her kids are all things that came right out of my classroom. There are so many different ways you need to connect with kids. All of that stuff I learned in the classroom.

Like J. K. Rowling, you use male and female lead characters.
Right. I hear equally from boys and girls. I'm so excited about that. There are certain big chains that have boys' sections and girls' sections, and I hate that.