Happy New Year!

YA novelist Beth Cooley invited me to join her at the Get Lit sponsored reading at Auntie's Bookstore in Spokane's Riverfront Plaza -- part of the town's "First Night" new year's celebration last night. I was so grateful to have that opportunity, in part because it's good to promote my new books, but more because I needed to remember I wasn't quite so all alone.

Writing can be such a solitary endeaver -- must be. And that's okay. I tend to do very well in isolation, most of the time. I moved a lot when I was a kid, and being alone was my only choice. No one likes the weird new kid, at least not right away. But even someone who is good at being alone gets lonely now and then.

Joining my writing friends -- many incredibly accepting and kind (some not so much) -- reminds me that I have a place in the world, even when I am afraid I don't. And aren't we all afraid of that, from time to time?

Joining Beth and John Bladek, another writer on the very edge of a brand new year was connective and therapeutic. Thank you so much for making it possible, Beth and Melissa at Get Lit. Thanks to the kids in the audience who are always accepting and great.

May we all have the happiest of New Years in 2012.