Deborah Blumenthal answers our Top Five

Deborah Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and nutritionist who now divides her time between writing children's books and adult novels. She has been a regular contributor to The New York Times (including four years as the Sunday New York Times Magazine beauty columnist), and a home design columnist for Long Island Newsday. She'll be reading and signing her new picture book, The Blue House Dog, on Saturday, July 31st at 11am at the bookstore.

1. What's on your nightstand right now?

The Liars' Club by Mary Karr and When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead.

2. How do you write?

Writing is my full-time job, but that doesn't mean I work a 40-hour week. When I'm in the middle of a project and it's going well, I can work from morning until night. If I'm not in the middle of a project or I'm working on something that isn't going well, I waste enormous amounts of time surfing websites like Zappos.com and JCrew.com. Whether I'm productive or not, I always work in a quiet area.

3. Name the first time or moment you realized you were a writer.

I married a writer – a reporter for The New York Times - and after that I began to think of everything in life as potential copy. I’m a nutritionist and my very first published piece was a New York Times story that my husband and I wrote jointly, about my attempts to convert him to vegetarianism. I wasn’t successful, but at least he stopped eating grilled franks with melted cheese.

4. What are you working on now?

More picture books and a YA novel.

5. Favorite recent find?

Definitely the lobster roll I had at the Beach Plum in North Hampton. In terms of books, I loved Sweethearts, a YA novel by Sara Zarr.