Stephenie Meyer is the most famous writer you’ve never heard of. But not for long. Meyer’s growing popularity is like a flashing billboard on our pop culture landscape.

The 34-year-old creator of the “Twilight ”teen vampire series is so sizzling hot, it’s not a stretch to suggest she’s heir apparent to J.K. Rowling, who gave the world Harry Potter.The self-assured Meyer doesn’t seem rattled by the comparison.“There will never be another J.K. Rowling. That’s a lot of pressure on me, isn’t it?” says Meyer, curled up on a leather sofa in her comfortable and airy adobe-style home in this sun-scorched desert community north of Phoenix.

“I’m just happy being Stephenie Meyer. That’s cool enough for me.”Meyer may be cool and composed, but her ravenous fans are in a frenzy. They’ve devoured the first three “Twilight ”saga novels and are ready to pounce when “Breaking Dawn”, the fourth and final book, went on sale Aug. 2 at 12:01 a.m. amid midnight-party madness befitting the final Harry Potter book. And they’re already overheated about “Twilight” the movie, which doesn’t hit theaters until Dec. 12.What’s all the fuss about?It starts with an otherworldly love triangle: human teenager Bella Swan, her hunky vampire boyfriend Edward Cullen and Jacob Black, the irascible werewolf who also loves her.

Fans are waiting to find out who Bella chooses, and if her choice means that she, too, will become a vampire.The numbers tell the story:After three years, nearly 8 million copies of Meyer’s first three books are in print in the U.S.; “Twilight”, the first in the series, was published in 2005.The first printing of “Breaking Dawn” is 3.2 million, the highest yet for a Meyer book.Meyer has dominated USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list this summer. “Twilight” was No. 1 last week; the second and third books, “New Moon” (2006) and “Eclipse ”(2007), wereNos. 2 and 4. Her first adult novel, “The Host”, a story of aliens published in May with 930,000 in print, was No. 15.Further proof that Rowling may be handing her magic wand off to Meyer: Last summer, Meyer ended Rowling’s reign at No. 1 when “Eclipse” knocked “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” off the top spot on USA TODAY’s list.Meyer’s road to literary fame is taking on the legendary quality that surrounds Rowling’s rise.

Rowling says the idea for Harry Potter simply “fell into (her) head” while she was on a train in England. Meyer says her inspiration came from a dream about a vampire she had five years ago.The stay-at-home mom was so moved by the dream she began writing “Twilight ”that day. She submitted the manuscript to literary agencies whose addresses she found online. “Twilight ”was plucked from one agency’s slush pile, submitted to publishers and bought by Little, Brown, which paid $750,000 for three books.Meyer still has a way to go to achieve Rowling’s stratospheric heights: 28 million copies of Rowling’s seven Potter books are in print in the U.S. So far, the money, the news media attention and the rock star reception from her fans haven’t gone to her head.“I think that after 30 years of being the most normal person in the whole world, it’s really hard to become ungrounded,” says Meyer. “When I’m not out on tour or doing photo shoots, I tend to just forget about it all.”And home is where she prefers to be, says the Mormon mother of three young sons.“The nice thing is that 95 percent of the time, I’m just Mom, and we’re just doing the normal thing, and I’m here, and it’s good.”The biggest change is that Pancho, her husband of 13 years, quit his job as an auditor to care for Gabe, 11, Seth, 8, and Eli, 6, when Meyer is on the road.Her Mormon faith, she says, is of intense interest to the news media, but to her, it’s just who she is.“It seems funny that it’s still a story,” Meyer says, “because you didn’t hear people saying, ’Jon Stewart, Jewish writer,’ when his book came out. I guess being a Mormon is just odd enough that people think it’s still a real story.

Obviously, to me, it seems super normal. It’s just my religion.”Right now, fans are more focused on her new book. Unlike the final Potter book, copies haven’t leaked out.Details are scarce, but Meyer, who says she finds it hard to keep secrets, has released a few.The most startling: Her editors asked her to tone down the violence in “Breaking Dawn”, which she did, and discussed putting an age warning on the book, which she says she supported, although it didn’t happen.“I was for an age limit of 15 or 16 and a warning,” says Meyer. “I think the content is just a little harder to handle, a little bit more grown-up for really young kids. I have 9-year-old readers, and I think it’s too old for them. Some of it’s violence, and some of it’s just mature themes.”Not that the first three books — told from Bella’s point of view - have been particularly bloodthirsty. Forget Dracula or Anne Rice’s metrosexual creatures of the night. Meyer’s good vampires, like Edward, satisfy their blood lust by hunting wild animals. No human blood for them.

She’s thinking about two sequels to “The Host” and is working on a ghost story.“I’m just going to try and stay home and write five books next year,” Meyer says. “It may not happen, but that’s my goal. And I’m not going to let anyone see them. It’s just going to be about sitting home and writing.”

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I was born in Connecticut in 1973, during a brief blip in my family's otherwise western U.S. existence. We were settled in Phoenix by the time I was four, and I think of myself as a native. The unusual spelling of my name was a gift from my father, Stephen (+ ie = me). Though I have had my name spelled wrong on pretty much everything my entire life long, I must admit that it makes it easier to google myself now.

I filled the "Jan Brady" spot in my family-the second of three girls. Unlike the Brady's, none of my three brothers are steps, and all of them are younger than all the girls. I went to high school in Scottsdale, Arizona, the kind of place where every fall a few girls would come back to school with new noses and there were Porsches in the student lot (for the record, I have my original nose, and never had a car until after I was in my twenties). I was awarded a National Merit Scholarship, and I used it to pay my way to Brigham Young University, in Provo, Utah. I majored in English, but concentrated on literature rather than creative writing, mostly because I didn't consider reading books "work" (as long as I was going to be doing something anyway, I might as well get course credit for it, right?).

I met my husband, Pancho (his real name is Christiaan), when I was four, but we were never anywhere close to being childhood sweethearts. In fact, though we saw each other at least weekly through church activities, I can't recall a single instance when we so much as greeted each other with a friendly wave, let alone exchanged actual words. This may have been for the best, because when we did eventually get around to exchanging words, sixteen years after our first meeting, it only took nine months from the first "hello" to the wedding. Of course, we were able to skip over a lot of the getting to know you parts (many of our conversations would go something like this: "This one time, when I was ten, I broke my hand at a party when-" "Yeah, I know what happened. I was there, remember?") We've been married for ten and a half years now, and have three beautiful, brilliant, wonderful boys who often remind me chimpanzees on crack.

My favorite authors/biggest influences are (in no particular order) Orson Scott Card, Jane Austen, William Shakespeare, Maeve Binchy, Charlotte Bronte, Daphne DuMaurier, L.M. Montgomery, Louisa May Alcott, Eva Ibbotson, William Goldman, Douglas Adams, Janet Evanovich… the list goes on, but I think I hit the highlights. I can't write without music, and my biggest muse is, ironically enough, the band Muse. My other favorite sources of inspiration are Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance, Coldplay, The All American Rejects, Travis, The Strokes, Brand New, U2, Kasabian, Jimmy Eat World, and Weezer, to mention a few.

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MTV: Do you plan on writing "Host" sequels?

Meyer: I hope. If I were to continue on with "The Host," which is a possibility, there are characters and stories that could continue. ... If I went ahead with that, it would be two more. ... Next would be "The Soul," and then "The Seeker."

Not at all. Like the Twilight Saga (this is probably the only way The Host is like the Twilight Saga!), The Host is just a story I had fun telling myself. My personal entertainment is always the key to why a story gets finished. I never think about another audience besides myself while I’m writing; that can wait for the editing stage.

3. You have referred to The Host as being a science fiction novel for people who don't like science fiction. Can you explain why?

4. There is a lot of internal dialogue between Wanderer, the narrator and invading "soul", and Melanie, the human whose body Wanderer is now living inside. Each character has her own distinct voice and internal struggle. Was it a challenge to have the two characters, who essentially take up one body, stand on their own?

Wanderer and Melanie were very distinct personalities to me from day one; keeping them separate was never an issue. Melanie is the victim—she’s the one that we, as humans, should identify with; at the same time, she is not always the more admirable character. She can be angry and violent and ruthless. Wanderer is the attacker, the thief. She is not like us, not even a member of our species. However, she is someone that I, at least, wish I was more like. She’s a better person than Melanie in a lot of ways, and yet a weaker person. The differences between the two main characters are the whole point of the story. If they weren’t so distinct, there would have been no reason to write it.

5. Did any of the characters surprise you while writing?

I am constantly surprised by my characters when I write—it’s really one of my favorite parts. When a character refuses to do what I had planned for him or her, that’s when I know that character is really alive. There were several characters who caught me off guard with The Host. One in particular was slated for a bit part as the wingman to the villain. Somehow, he knew he was more than that, and I couldn’t stop him from morphing into a main love interest.

I’ve had a great deal of interest from my YA readers about the release of The Host. I have no doubt that they will continue to make up a core part of my readership. I love blurring the lines between the different genres and categories—because in my head, a good book won’t fit inside the lines. I hope that The Host continues to do what the Twilight Saga is doing: showing that a good story doesn’t belong to any one demographic.

7. How do you feel about the enormous success that you’ve had with the Twilight series? How has it changed your life?

I am continually shocked by the success of my books. I never take it for granted, and I do not count on it in my expectations of my future. It’s a very enjoyable thing, and I’ll have fun with it while it lasts. I’ve always considered myself first and foremost a mother, so being a writer hasn’t changed my life too much – except I do travel a lot more and have less free time.

8. What adult authors do you read?

9. What’s next?

I’m currently finishing writing the fourth book in the Twilight saga, Breaking Dawn, which will wrap up Bella and Edward’s story. I plan to then write Midnight Sun, which is Twilight told from Edward’s perspective. After that, I may write some sequels for The Host, or a may pull another outline from my files to play with. I won’t stop writing; there are too many stories I want to tell.

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