And one of the things that I learned on 9/11 was that it doesn’t matter if you’ve been in this city for your whole life, for months, or for only hours–if you are here in a moment in which we all need each other, you are a New Yorker, and every other New Yorker is a person you can lean on.

Today, instead of sitting in front of my tv, I lived. I had brunch with friends I’ve known since college. Two of whom have two-year-olds. I got a picture of my 7-week-old nephew in a Steelers jersey and showed him off to everyone. I watched the “Isaac & Ishmael” episode of The West Wing. I did a little work.

And what I keep coming back to is watching my friends’ kids, and my nephew, whose entire lives will be lived in a post-9/11 world, and what else they might see. This is, I imagine, something every generation feels as they watch a new one being born. And so I am glad that what I do is help to give these children stories. Because we need stories to survive. Stories about first days of school, and friends, and families, and losing a first tooth. Stories about fear and courage, loyalty, and discovering who we are. Stories that show us experiences different from our own and ideas that widen our perceptions. Stories that show us we aren’t alone.

As Josh said in the West Wing episode (and come on, who could say anything better than Josh Lyman/Aaron Sorkin?): “Learn things, be good to each other. Read the newspapers, go to the movies, go to a party, read a book. In the meantime, remember pluralism. You want to get these people? You really want to reach in and kill them where they live? Keep accepting more than one idea.”

I think as long as we have stories and each other, we’re going to be okay.

Me (age a few months) & my dad

Around age 3ish, I think.

About age 4 or 5, maybe.

Reading with Dad & Nik

Age 11 on Dad's truck

So it might be no surprise that this discovery on Friday quickly became one of my favorite things on the internet: “You Should Date an Illiterate Girl.”

The girl who reads has spun out the account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. She insists that her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface bold. . . . You will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being storied.

As the famous letter says, how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. We have to believe in the intangibles.

I believe in light in darkness.

I believe in family.

I believe in friendship.

I believe in generosity.

I believe in God.

I believe in magic, science, creativity, and inspiration.

I believe in joy.

I believe in the power of stories.

I believe in understanding someone without words, in connection, in empathy and sympathy and support, in companionship.

I believe in dedication and in trust.

I believe in laughter.

I believe in knowledge.

I believe in love.

I believe in goodness.

I believe in people.

And I most definitely believe in Santa Claus. I always have and I always will.

December 16 – Friendship How has a friend changed you or your perspective on the world this year? Was this change gradual, or a sudden burst?

Whenever I encounter the question “What couldn’t you live without?” my answer is my friends. And I’ve been very lucky in my friendships. I’m still friends with the girl who was my very first friend. (Our moms became friends when they were pregnant with us, and her birthday is almost exactly one month after mine, so we have known each other our whole lives.) I’m still friends with the girl who would come to my house after preschool till her mom got off work when we were three. (We also took ballet together until we were in middle school.) I’m still friends with my clan from high school. I’m still friends with my crew from college. And I have made so many friends in this New York part of my life, too, both within the publishing industry and outside of it. And when I say I’m friends with all of these people, I mean really friends, not just casual acquaintances who still keep in touch occasionally. They are my people; the ones who have been beside me in both the worst and best times of my life; the ones who I will stand beside through anything that happens to them. No matter what. Because once people matter to me, they matter forever. I get attached, and I’m incredibly loyal, and I can’t ever stop caring about people. So my friends are stuck with me. I think they’re okay with that.

But that’s not really what the prompt asks. It asks specifically about this year. And in this year, I have been constantly blown away by how we all can change and grow and yet stay connected and never lose ourselves.

Suddenly, I’ve hit the time in my life when my friends are getting married and having babies. Three of four of my high school girls have all had children in the past year and a half. How odd to be the parents when we all hang out rather than the kids! Everything has changed . . . and yet nothing has changed either. We’re all still the same girls we were at sixteen hanging out in our own parents’ basements, watching scary movies and over-analyzing the boys we had crushes on.

Sadly, I don't have any high school pictures of us scanned (yet), but this one's a few years old. It'll have to do.

And one of my best friends from college got married over the summer, which meant I got to see a big bunch of my college people all at once. Again, so much has changed, and yet, we’re all just as comfortable and ridiculous with each other as we always were. It was like no time at all had passed in the nine years since we all saw each other every day. And this new guy, whom my friend loves and who loves her just as much as we all do, was instantly part of the circle from the very first moment we all met him.

It makes me laugh every time.

These are just two call-outs of so many I could choose from. I hope that every single one of my friends knows how important they have been to me in 2010 and how much they make me look forward to 2011.

So. Now you know why I’m always saying that I love books with strong friendships in them, too.

Sure, now, that seems like a breeze, after having written a 50-page thesis in college and writing editorial letters that are sometimes more than five pages. But back then, it was an intimidating thought.

But want to know a secret? I loved every single minute of those classes. Both remain two of the most challenging classes I’ve ever taken, for the level I was at then. The best kind of challenging–the kind that made me realize I could think and talk about the books I read. Largely because I had two pretty amazing teachers.

I had a lot of great English and literature teachers all through grade school, high school, and college. All of them are part of the reason I discovered that being an editor of children’s books is what I love and helped me to get where I am now, actually doing it. Mrs. Deeter in eighth grade drilled correct grammar into us, and it’s still helping me every day. Mrs. Higgins in the seventh grade made sure we were all read at least one book of literary merit per marking period and wrote a report on it. (I read a lot more than that. But somehow eluded Up a Road Slowly, which every other girl in the class ended up reading at some point. Someday I’m going to sit down with that one.) In college, Judy Gill taught me how to talk to other people about their writing, and also made sure I wrote with confidence in my own opinions–no wishy-washy writing got past her. Carol Ann Johnston and Wendy Moffat taught me how to make a firm argument, and how to poke holes in one that was flabby.

But Mrs. Gridley (who taught me English both freshman and sophomore year, as well as Essay Writing) was the very first teacher who made me realize that this reading and writing stuff was something that I’m good at. The very first book we read in Essay Writing was The Great Gatsby. We spent a few weeks reading and talking about it, and then it was time to write our first essay. Mine was about the symbolism of the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg. A few days after we handed them in, I was walking down the hall between classes with one of my friends, and I heard Mrs. Gridley say from right behind us, “Who knew Martha Mihalick had such a strong voice!” She’d read my essay, either the night before or earlier that day. (It’s probably key to know that I was very shy and quiet in high school.) And she thought it was good.

That moment has stuck with me ever since. I’d never had anyone tell me outright that my opinions about what I read were well-thought-out and that they mattered. In college, while I was writing a paper, I would hear her in my head, and sometimes I even still do.

And Miss Sarosi taught the dreaded honors English that year (and taught me for AP English the next year). What made that class (well, both that and AP) so hard was that junior year was the year we had to start thinking about literature for ourselves. Miss Sarosi didn’t spoon feed us what the symbolism, allusions, themes, etc, were. We had to use our brains and come up with them on our own. And I always felt that whatever it was we came up with, those interpretations were valid…as long as we could back them up. (You see why having Essay Writing in tandem with this class worked so well.) That class made me feel like I was an adult when it came to reading and writing. Miss Sarosi pushed me to be the best reader I could be.

I guess what all of this is to say, simply, is that a good teacher is invaluable, and can shape who you become. Having teachers who believed in me is something that I’m thankful for every day.

You can find it over here.

Recently, a friend who has a few typography/literature-inspired pieces got a new one– “stet” on the back of her neck. To stet herself, as she is, which I think is such a neat idea. And another friend shared this photo that she came across. Both made me start wanting a third. (I have a Garamond italic ampersand and the lamppost from Narnia.)

When I was growing up, it seemed that tattoos were a very “badass” thing to do. But now it seems like they are so much more prevalent–and nerdy tattoos have just as much prevalence as any other. Maybe I’m totally making this up, but it seems to me that they are becoming more and more accepted. Not necessarily “mainstream” but not a much bigger deal than getting your ears pierced or your belly button pierced. (At least, my mom’s reaction to “I got another tattoo” was exactly the same as her reaction to “I didn’t fold my laundry at the laundromat.”)

And I think that is really interesting for a time when things are moving more and more to digital. Something involving ink and physical, tangible marking is just as popular as ever, if not more so. It makes me think that print isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. While the internet is has permanence (you can find anything and it could be there forever), it’s also so impermanent (the next new thing is always washing away the old). Digital is all ever-shifting pixels and light.

Ink has power. It soaks into the surface it’s used upon. It becomes part of the paper, of us. When I looked up definitions and history of tattoos as I started to think about this post, many used the word “indelible” to describe them. Indelible means “that cannot be removed, washed away, or erased.” A tattoo grows with you. Writer Michelle Delio said, “When designs are chosen with care, tattoos have a power and magic all their own. They decorate the body but they also enhance the soul.” When you hit on the right choice for a design, even though you will change and your focus will shift as life moves on, that design will always hold something special for you. (Which is not to say that people don’t get bad tattoos for ill-advised reasons. That definitely, definitely happens.)

So many novels use tattoos in powerful ways, too. In Robin McKinley’s Sunshine, they are spells, and they can shift and move. There’s Melissa Marr’s books, too. Sometimes it isn’t good, as in The Diary of Pelly D by L.J. Adlington, when everyone must be marked with their genetic line. But back to the good, in Amanda Davis’s novel Wonder When You’ll Miss Me, the “painted” young man in the circus says, “Tattoos are weird, you know. They’re, like, addictive. You fall in love with them and then you want to cover yourself. It’s like you’re reclaiming your body or something. Marking it up just for yourself.”

Who knows whether I’ll have the lightning strike “OH!” idea for a new design anytime soon. Or ever. Maybe rather than being addictive, it’s more that once you have one tattoo, you’re more open to that lightning striking. The ink’s become part of you, and the permanence is no longer scary. But you’ve got to be selective about it.

Anyway. This is all just to say that I wonder if there’s a connection between people of my generation getting more tattoos and the move to digital. Even while we are smitten with the technology and gadgets, and see how they will be important to our futures, are we also grounding ourselves in something real, something that can be touched? Something indelible?

“Written on the body is a secret code only visible in certain lights; the accumulations of a lifetime gather there. In places, the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like braille.” –Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body

I was acquiring a new sister:

High-five for wedding success!

And then one of my best friends got married, too:

All the Dickinson alumni at Deb's wedding!

Other exciting things were happening, too, though. Like Leah Cypess’s debut novel, Mistwood, was published.

And so was Jody Feldman’s second novel, The Seventh Level.

And I was busy at work on some fantastic novels that you’ll be able to read in 2011. (Or maybe later this fall, if you’re lucky enough to get an ARC.) I’ll be telling you more about those at a later date.

Happy summer!

It reminded me of a moment in The West Wing when President Bartlet says that if nothing else, they will raise the level of public discourse in the country.

Not to get too political, but this is one of the big reasons I voted for Obama. Because he made good arguments. He didn’t pander, didn’t talk down, and didn’t rely on easy catchphrases and showmanship. I felt that he wanted to engage our minds, he wanted us to think, to form our opinions, regardless of whether we agreed with him or not.

I started to think about this blog post right after listening to This American Life yesterday morning, and it seems particularly timely given tonight’s health care debate.

I think however much we all want to be entertained, we also thirst for a good argument, for the debates, the statements, the information that makes us think. And I can tie it all back into books for children and teens, too. (Of course!) One of the reasons I love working on books for young people is that they have that hunger to know and understand things. A good book opens the world and challenges even while it entertains. It doesn’t talk down, but talks to its audience. It holds that audience in high regard. A good book gives everything, and I think that as a result, all of us and our world give everything back in return. We become engaged with ourselves and with each other.