Accidental Tribes follows eight students in an experimental school program who must learn to work together while confronting family struggles, digital cruelty, and the hidden agendas of adults. What were some sources that informed this novel’s development?

As the mother of a teenage boy and someone who has spent decades using technology to create positive social impact, I wanted to write for the generation growing up inside the systems my generation helped build but hasn’t quite finished shaping. Questions about identity, belonging, and responsibility became very personal: What are we asking young people to navigate, and how closely are we listening to them?

Teenagers were essential to the book’s development. Every chapter went to a council of teen readers, who marked what worked in green and what didn’t in red. Chapters came back bleeding. I rewrote them. Their responses helped me understand where I was reaching them and where an adult’s assumptions were getting in the way.

My work in technology and community building also shaped the story. I’ve seen how people can use the same tools to create opportunities, hurt one another, or find connection. I wanted those possibilities to live inside a mystery, through choices readers could experience alongside these eight teenagers.

How did the question of meeting one’s future self shape David’s search for stability and Antoni’s struggle to imagine an independent future?

That question asks them to imagine having a say in who they become. It can be difficult to picture a future when so much of your attention goes toward managing the present.

For David, the grounding idea is to pick one thing to hold on to when everything around him seems to be falling apart. He doesn’t have to solve everything at once. Having that one thing gives him somewhere to begin, even while the rest remains uncertain.

For Antoni, imagining his future self opens the question of what he wants for his own life, beyond other people’s expectations. Can he picture an independent future before he knows how to reach it?

I wanted both experiences to leave room for uncertainty. You may not know who you’ll become, but you can find something to ground yourself in and begin making choices from there.

How did you approach Jamie and Patty’s history while allowing Jamie’s desire for friendship to coexist with anger that apologies cannot resolve?

I wanted to let both feelings remain true. Jamie can want friendship and still be angry about what happened. Wanting someone close doesn’t mean the hurt has disappeared, and an apology doesn’t automatically restore trust. Bullies must understand the repercussions of their actions, which can sometimes last for decades.

Teenagers can hold so many conflicting emotions at once. They can miss someone, resent them, want an explanation, and wish things could return to how they were. I wanted not only Jamie, but all Unlucky 8, to have that complexity without being hurried toward conclusion.

With Patty, I wanted room for the person beyond the harm she caused, while still allowing that harm to matter. Their history asks something difficult of both of them: how do you move toward another person when you cannot undo what happened?

What guided your portrayal of Dr. Miryam’s manipulation, especially when her methods complicate the belonging and responsibility she hopes to teach?

I kept returning to the responsibility that comes with having power over young people. Dr. Miryam’s hopes for these students don’t settle the question of whether her methods are justified. Her choices still deserve scrutiny.

There is a contradiction in trying to teach responsibility while controlling what others know and the choices available to them. Belonging becomes complicated, too, when the person offering it also holds power over you.

I wanted readers to question her alongside the students. Adults ask teenagers to be honest, accountable, and thoughtful about consequences. We owe them those same things.

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