There's little question that Meg Cabot is a phenomenon, someone whose output seems to increase that much more every minute. She has the YA market covered, and her newest novel for adults, QUEEN OF BABBLE, hit bestseller lists, too. So how did she get to where she is? <strong>Joanne Kaufman of the WSJ discovers that much of it was accidental.

"I was going to be a romance writer. I actually started my career writing them. They were very smutty and I didn't want my grandma to find out." To keep it a secret Ms. Cabot used the pen name Patricia Cabot -- Patricia's her middle name. Granny caught on quickly.

But the YA novels - especially THE PRINCESS DIARIES books - have struck a major chord with teen readers. "I can be seen as weird like some of Meg's characters," says Nicole Guappone, a Masontown, Pa., 16-year-old who's read Ms. Cabot's entire oeuvre except for the historical romances. "A lot of the other kids like punk music and I like folk and country. Her books make me feel I'm not the only one out there who doesn't conform." And according to Publishers Weekly's Diane Roback, what draws them in -- those with pimples, those with pompoms -- is "Meg's light, engaging tone and style," says Roback. "Her books are fun, escapist fare. They're commercial without being trashy. There aren't the salacious goings-on of books like GOSSIP GIRL."