Suzanne Collins

When I got out of undergrad, I had a degree in theater and telecommunications. My first job, I was a news reporter for the local stories for NPR. Then I was a country-western DJ. I did data entry for a yearbook company. In my mid-20s I went back to grad school at NYU, and I specialized in playwriting.

If I have to pick one story that most influenced 'The Hunger Games,' it would be the Greek myth of Theseus, which I read when I was about 8 years old. In punishment for past deeds, Athens periodically had to send seven youths and seven maidens to a labyrinth. In the maze was this Minotaur, and it would eat them.

I try to catch flies in cups and put them outside. After I wrote 'The Underland Chronicles'... well, once you start naming cockroaches, you lose your edge.

I sort of half read Thomas Hardy's 'The Mayor of Casterbridge.' It was assigned in 10th grade, and I just couldn't get into it. About seven years later, I rediscovered Hardy and consumed four of his novels in a row.

My mother tried really hard to protect us, but occasionally, after afternoon cartoons of whatever was on... the nightly news would come on, and I'd see footage from the war zone, and I would hear the word 'Vietnam,' and I would know my dad was over there, and it was a very frightening experience for me.

I loved 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.' I read it later as an adult, but I loved 'We Have Always Lived in a Castle.' And that brings you around to 'The Lottery.' You can't pretend - it's a lottery in which you draw a name and people die. That's a short story, but it's such an incredible short story.

When I was young, I was trained in stage fighting and rapier and dagger for several years.

Any time you read a book and get attached to the characters, to me it's always a shock when it goes from page to screen and it's not exactly what was in my head or what I was imagining it should be.

I have a pretty big TV background, and I have clocked so many hours in so many writers' rooms over the years.

Whenever I write a story, I hope it appeals to both boys and girls.

Director Gary Ross has created an adaptation that is faithful in both narrative and theme, but he's also brought a rich and powerful vision of Panem, its brutality and excesses, to the film as well. His world building's fantastic, whether it be the Seam or the Capitol.

I'm not comfortable around cameras.

'Lord of the Flies' is one of my favorite books. That was a big influence on me as a teenager; I still read it every couple of years.

I'm not a very fancy person. I've been a writer a long time, and right now 'The Hunger Games' is getting a lot of focus. It'll pass. The focus will be on something else. It'll shift. It always does. And that seems just fine.

The cast, led by the extraordinary Jennifer Lawrence, is absolutely wonderful across the board. It's such a pleasure to see how they've embodied the characters and brought them to life.

My father was career military. He was a veteran, he was a doctor of political science, he taught at West Point and Air Command Staff and lectured at the War College.

Katniss Everdeen owes her last name to Bathsheba Everdene, the lead character in 'Far From the Madding Crowd.' The two are very different, but both struggle with knowing their hearts.

One of the most memorable things I hear is when someone tells me that my books got a reluctant reader to read.

I wrote 'The Hunger Games' in a chair, like a La-Z-Boy chair, next to my bed. I had an office, but my kids sort of took it over.

It's amazing to see things that are suggested in the book fully developed and so brilliantly realized through the artistry of the designers.