PRETTY PRETTY BANNER!

Brought to you courtesy of Suzanne Young--prolific novelist (can't wait to read the Naughty List!), blogger extraordinaire, and all-around good and helpful and generous person. I'm so excited about seeing her star rise--she deserves it!

I mean, seriously, how pretty is this banner?

Since starting in YA, I've met so many truly kind people--people who, despite having absolutely no reason to be nice to me, have been incredibly generous with their time and energy and intellect. Like, the other day Jay Asher emailed me just to say congratulations about the blurb I'd received from Carolyn Mackler. That bears repeating: Jay Asher emailed ME to congratulate me. I was like, "Um, yeah, congratulations on having a monster best-seller and being on a cross-country book tour yourself." Craziness.

My point is, it's really starting to chip away at the hardened and cynical views of human nature I have maintained (some would say as a defense mechanism) my whole life. Can I survive without them?? Stay tuned.