When the author is not traveling, he works at an L-shaped desk, which affords a sunny window. He writes everything on an electric typewriter because "it has to be a book from the first day," he explains. He has no daily routine because of all the traveling he does, but follows a very disciplined writing process. He writes each page six times, then places it in a three-ring binder with a DePauw University cover ("a talisman," he calls this memento from his alma mater). When he feels that he has gotten a page just right, he takes out another 20 words. "After a year, I've come to the end. Then I'll take this first chapter, and without rereading it, I'll throw it away and write the chapter that goes at the beginning. Because the first chapter is the last chapter in disguise." He always hands in a completed manuscript, and his editor is his first reader.

Published works

Anthologies

• 1970: Sounds and Silencttytes: Poems For Now
• 1971: Mindscapes: Poems for the Real World
• 1973: Leap Into Reality: Essays For Now
• 1976: Pictures That Storm Inside My Head (poetry anthology, editor)
• 2004: Past Perfect, Present Tense (short story collection)

Novels

• 1972: Don't Look and It Won't Hurt
• 1973: Dreamland Lake
• 1973: Through a Brief Darkness
• 1974: Representing Super Doll ISBN 9780380004164
• 1976: Are You in the House Alone?
• 1976: The Ghost Belonged to Me ISBN 0-670-33767-6
• 1977: Ghosts I Have Been
• 1977: Monster Night at Grandma's House
• 1978: Father Figure
• 1979: Secrets of the Shopping Mall
• 1980: Amanda/Miranda
• 1981: Close Enough to Touch
• 1981: New York Time
• 1983: The Dreadful Future of Blossom Culp
• 1983: This Family of Women
• 1985: Remembering the Good Times
• 1986: Blossom Culp and the Sleep of Death
• 1987: Princess Ashley
• 1987: Write a Tale of Terror
• 1988: Those Summer Girls I Never Met
• 1989: Voices After Midnight
• 1991: Unfinished Portrait of Jessica
• 1993: Bel-Air Bambi and the Mall Rats
• 1995: Lost in Cyberspace!
• 1995: The Last Safe Place on Earth
• 1996: The Great Interactive Dream Machine: Another Adventure in Cyberspace
• 1998: London Holiday
• 1998: A Long Way from Chicago
• 1998: Strays Like Us
• 2000: A Year Down Yonder
• 2001: Fair Weather
• 2003: The River Between Us
• 2004: The Teacher's Funeral: A Comedy in Three Parts
• 2006: Here Lies The Librarian
• 2007: On the Wings of Heroes
• 2009: "A Season of Gifts"

Nonfiction

• 1971: The Creative Word
• 1974: Transitions: a Literary Paper Casebook
• 1974: Urban Studies: a Research Paper Casebook
• 1991: Anonymously Yours (autobiography)
• 1994: Love and Death at the Mall: Teaching and Writing for the Literate Young
• 2002: Invitations to the World: Teaching and Writing for the Young
• 2007: Escape! The Story Of The Great Houdini
• 2009: Nothing

Works adapted into movies

• 1976: The Ghost Belonged to Me
• 1977: Are You in the House Alone?
• 1978: Child of Glass (The Ghost Belonged to Me)
• 1980: Father Figure
• 1991: Gas Food Lodging (Don't Look and It Won't Hurt)

• 1974: Edgar Allan Poe Award nominee, Best Juvenile, Dreamland Lake
• 1977: Edgar Allan Poe Award, Best Juvenile, Are You in the House Alone?
• 1990: Margaret A. Edwards Award
• 1990: ALAN Award
• 1991: University of Southern Mississippi Medallion
• 1999: National Book Award finalist: Newbery Honor, A Long Way from Chicago
• 2001: Newbery Medal, A Year Down Yonder
• 2001: National Humanities Medal
• 2004: Jeremiah Ludington Memorial Award
• 2005: ALAN Award