and talented softball pitcher who has returned to the neighborhood. Andy and Glory soon discover that their talents peak when they perform together, but when a mysterious benefactor promises to launch Andy's musical career, he agrees to walk away from his budding romance. Asked whether there were any autobiographical characterizations in his work, Ritter said, "Andy Ramos, the main character in Under the Baseball Moon, is fairly autobiographical. I wrote tons of songs and dreamed of making it big in the rock world from age 15 to 22. His father, though, is closer to who I am today in his approach to life and his view of the entertainment industry's customary habit of reining in and ‘branding the maverick’ of talented, rising stars whom they deem as being too far out creatively." Questioning the uniqueness of the characters in the novel, the interviewer commented to Ritter that in Under the Baseball Moon, "Glory Martinez is a handful. It seems like she stepped out of a Joyce Carol Oates novel. Can you elaborate on why she had such a tough upbringing and still comes across with charm and drive? She is one of the more intriguing characters I’ve come across in recent YA literature." Ritter replied that he sees her charm "as being hard-won through a conscious decision she made a few years before the book begins...I know from personal experience how hard it is to grow up happy and somewhat normal in a single parent home when that parent is an alcoholic. As you get older, though, you have a choice, and it can go one of two ways. Either you become your antagonistic, anti-social parent and repeat his mistakes or, by watching and suffering through his failures, you become the opposite. Of those two choices, Glory made the healthy one, which, as you say, is quite unusual in YA literature. But kids in Glory's situation do occasionally develop a desire to dream big, coupled with the drive to succeed, and I find this rare character far more fun and interesting to write about than the typical." During the 2006 Florida Council of Teachers of English Convention in Orlando, Florida, FCTE President, Dr. Virginia White, presented Ritter with the President's Award for "significant contribution to the teaching of English in the state of Florida" citing the literary value of his books and the positive impact they had on the teaching