Last evening, at the Chester County Book & Music Company,

I read a little from You Are My Only and talked about where my books come from.  But far more important to me was this:  I stood in one of the great independent bookstores (think of this:  the children/YA section of the store is far bigger than my entire house) among kindhearted booksellers, emerging writers (look for K.M Walton's Cracked in mid-December and send good thoughts to Ilene Wong), my tremendous publicist Ellen Trachtenberg, my good friend and Shire colleague, Charlene McGrady, two friends from twenty years ago, and these five West Chester University students, all taking a course in childhood literacy. 

(The lovely young lady in pink also brought her boyfriend along, a history major looking forward, he says, to an upcoming trip to Prague and Berlin, two of my favorite places in the world.)

We talked for a long time and closed the store.  I drove home over leaf-scattered roads, grateful for booksellers and friends and grateful, too, for teachers who send their students out into the world in search of brand new stories.