There have been numerous times that Pismo Beach author Wendelin Van Draanen thought she’d written her last novel, but she keeps thinking of plot ideas—more than 30 to date.
Her latest novel, The Steps, was released on Sept. 2. Plus, Van Draanen has another book coming out in the fall of 2026, and she’s working on one to be released after that.
Locally made
The Steps and other novels by Wendelin Van Draanen can be purchased online or in bookstores. She’ll be teaching classes at the Central Coast Writers’ Conference from Sept. 26 to 27 at Cuesta College. Follow her on Instagram @wendelinvand.
“I just love when I have an idea for a story,” she told the Sun as she sat at her dining room table. “Then I think, ‘This is my last book,’ because I have no idea.”
Despite the speed at which she releases books, she is a one-project-at-a-time type of author. Characters consume her thoughts while she’s gardening, driving, and cleaning the house. It’s like she develops a friendship with her characters, she described, but not in a crazy way.
Van Draanen doesn’t write down her ideas because if she can’t remember them, it means they aren’t worth spending years writing and editing. She said that the idea for The Steps came to her seven years ago, and while she was working on other projects, her excitement to write The Steps simmered on the backburner.
The novel follows 14-year-old Ruby Vossen as she navigates the mysteries inside and outside her family’s manor. The sudden deaths of her mother and aunt draw tense family lines, separating Ruby from her cousin and best friend, Sterling. On top of all that grief, her father remarries, and Ruby must now compete for his attention with her manipulative stepmother and step siblings, who she nicknames the “Steps.”
Of course, the story has bright tones, too. One of the fun parts of writing the story, the author said, was creating a group of characters called the “Chessies,” who are inspired by Van Draanen’s days monitoring a chess club when she taught high school.
“The Chessies are kind of like a really late love letter to the kids who were chess club members when I was a teacher,” she said.
Growing up, her family played chess, and she passed the tradition down to her sons. Her newest protagonist, Ruby, is also an avid player who forms true friendships with the Chessies when she has to branch out from her relationship with her cousin.
Van Draanen half-jokingly said chess is the only game that matters.
“It’s the game to me,” Van Draanen said. “I like to battle it out in chess.”
In some ways, the whole novel feels like a game of chess. Ruby is constantly trying to protect herself and think one step ahead of the villains.
Ruby experiences a lot of things for the first time in The Steps. Van Draanen said writing about early “firsts” is one of her favorite parts of writing for a young adult audience. Ruby is forced to stand up for herself after the turmoil caused by her mother’s death and the Steps moving in, which she has never had to do before.
“If you have a character that you see stand up for themself, you as the reader feel kind of empowered to do that for yourself,” Van Draanen said.
Though she is a published author many times over, she recently experienced a “first” for herself, too. In August, she traveled to China for the first time and was the only nonregional speaker at the South China Book Fair in Guangzhou. Van Draanen’s novel, Flipped, which was adapted into a 2010 film, is very popular in China, she said. Readers buy a two-book set containing the Chinese and English versions.
“They all say [Flipped] gave them courage. That makes me feel really good because they could see beneath the surface of the humor and the romance,” Van Draanen said.
Themes are present throughout all her novels, but she doesn’t need them to be too obvious. A big takeaway in The Steps is that the value of family and love is greater than money and power. The characters who nefariously work to secure financial gains are doomed.
“My view is that if you write a story that’s action packed or has humor or has romance but that there is some underlying thematic takeaway, a person can apply that to their own life,” she said.
Van Draanen’s main message is that reading should be fun, not something that needs to be checked off the box for school.
“Reading is awesome,” she said. “And if you read because you like to read, then you’ll just get better at it.”
Staff Writer Madison White loves reading. Send all manner of reading material to mwhite@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 11 – Sep 18, 2025.