Small Damages is kindly included in Florinda's end-of-year list

Between the cracks of time, between the race down aisles, between the morning hours and the evening hours, Florinda and I find time for books; we find time for each other.  Coasts apart, we coax our curly hair.  Time zones separated, we nonetheless are friends.

And once she was my own personal BEA publicist.  Seriously.  She saw an opportunity.  She took it on.  It was a shining moment.

Today I am especially grateful to be included in her masterful list of year-end books read and loved over at her blog The 3Rs.  I won't spoil any of it for you.  Go take a look, see what she read and what she thought.  You'll be glad you did.

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My BEA Day (with photos)

I rose at 3 AM, walked the just-before-dawn streets, took one train and then another (much, oh much too much delayed) train, then ran the long blocks toward the BEA.  I was, shall we say, windblown by the time I arrived.  But there to greet me were the ever-lovely, ever kind Danielle (There's a Book) and Florinda (The 3rs Blog)—first-rate bloggers and people. It was about time I met the generous Danielle.  About time I gave Florinda (who was my unofficial publicist last year at the BEA) another hug.

From there to see my dear friends at Philomel, to meet more of that tremendous team, and to finally say hello to the phenomenal Ruta Sepetys in person; she has a new book coming out that I think will be just as amazing (in many different ways) as Between Shades of Gray.  From there to listen to four of the buzz adult authors talk about the process, their books, their hopes.  A beautiful interlude with Lauren Wein.  Then to sit in the audience of Jennifer Brown (the fantastic children's editor for Shelf Awareness) and Kristi Yamaguchi, an Olympian with a heart of gold. A run from the Downtown Stage to the Uptown Stage so that I could sit in the front row (all other seats were gone) of the YA Buzz panel, featuring, among other people, Melissa Marr, Jenny Han, Tonya Hurley, and my friend Siobhan Vivian.

Just after dawn now, and I've filed all my stories for Publishing Perspectives. I'll link to them here when they go live.

Now I'm going to go fix my hair. Then settle down, and teach.

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Florinda's Kindness. Best of Graces. K.M. Walton. DeWitt Henry. And the beach in winter.

I have been sitting here since four this morning, when it was all dark and all cold.  At one point I looked up, and there was blue within the black.  And then, a little while on, I looked and saw the float of pillowed pink.

Just ahead of the pinking, I went to my favorite blogs list and clicked onto the 3 R's Blog to see what Florinda has cooking.  Oh, good, I thought.  Her best of year list.  With great interest, I read.  The Warmth of Other Suns—a fabulous choice.  Tina Fey's Bossypants—absolutely; that book made me laugh when I needed a laugh. Just Kids by Patti Smith, one of my all-time favorite memoirs.  The Girls of Murder City.

It was when I got to the fiction list that I did a double take, for there was You Are My Only, alongside Faith, Girl in Translation, and Fathermucker. My little book beside some very big books.  Florinda's goodness forever transparent.

Why are there always 3,000 miles between me and the people that I want to hug?  I'm hoping Florinda can feel my hug today.  I am hoping there is pink in her sky.

Florinda, you deserve some major pink in your sky. Thank you. For everything.

My deep affection for the bloggers who have been so kind to You Are My Only is well-established.  I am so surprised and so moved by all of you who named You Are My Only at year's end (listing alphabetically): 

Caribousmom/Short List for Fiction
Caribousmom/Buzz Books Which Did Not Disappoint
Dear Author
My Friend Amy
On a Southern Breeze
The 3 R's Blog
Two Heads Together
Washington, D.C. Literature/Examiner.com

Tonight I'm going lift a glass in your honor in Atlantic City, where I'll be with my boys, doing that winter-at-the-beach thing we do.

I'll come home in time to lift another glass to K.M. Walton (though I promise not to arrive already tripping), who is launching her first book, Cracked, at the Chester County Book Company on Saturday night.  There's going to be a gonzo crowd.  Be there, I say.

On Sunday, I'm off to celebrate Little Miss Eva's birthday.  Of course there will be photos; there always are.

And then on Tuesday, I'll be in the company of my good friends, Elizabeth Mosier, Chris Mills, Kelly Simmons, and Pam Sedor as we toast DeWitt Henry, writer, founding editor of Ploughshares, and former Chair of Writing, Literature, and Publishing at Emerson College, who is returning to his childhood haunts on the Main Line with an evening talk at the Radnor Memorial Library.  I'll repeat myself, because I can: 

Be there.

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When you run out of thank you, what do you say?

Look.  I'm going to be honest with you.  You book bloggers out there are bringing me to my knees in gratitude.  You have no idea what your words, your enthusiasm, your deeply felt embraces mean—right now, always.  Every single blog post takes time.  Time to construct the thoughts, to find those links, to read the words through, to make them right, to get it all out there.  Time away from something else (so many things) that might be done.  I know how much time matters—how there is never enough of it—and I am so grateful that you have gifted me with so much of yours.

I speak of all of you out there who have been so supportive of You Are My Only, of this blog, of this odd book life of mine.  And today I speak to Florinda of the fabulous 3Rs, who wrote this beautiful post just now.  In honor of who she is, and of how she stood at my side at the BEA this past summer, and of all that she does as a book blogger and reviewer (her own blog was a long-list nominee for the BBAW), I am replaying a little video that we made during a happy moment this past summer.  We had this conversation on behalf of the Armchair BEA initiative that has now been nominated as part of the 2011 Book Bloggers Appreciation Week.

Florinda, then and now, I thank you.

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Author of Florinda's Year

I took this photograph from the fourteenth floor of an Atlantic City hotel two nights ago and said to myself, You won't be using this one until something really special happens.

This morning I woke to a note about something that is, to me, so very touching and special:  Florinda of The 3 R's Blog has named me her author of the year and cited The Heart is Not a Size as one of her two top young adult reads of 2010. 

Hearts are not, in the end, a size.  But mine is very full.  Thank you.

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The Heart is Not a Size: a truly lovely review

Because this might be my Riley at the Devon Horse Show (where a major scene from The Heart is Not a Size does indeed occur), I place her here, in acknowledgement of (and in gratitude for) the extraordinary review that you will find here, courtesy of a special lady.  That's all I'm saying.  You'll have to travel beyond these unpopped balloons to find out more.

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