Once upon a time there was a girl who wanted to write books. (OK, maybe she wasn’t a girl, she was in her mid-30s and still is, but she likes shoes and shopping and pedicures and other girly things). So she wrote a novel about a woman who loved the movies. Then she wrote a novel about a woman who loved to sing. Then she wrote another novel about a woman who does something daring on the Internet. Then she said: I know what the problem is! My characters are too old! So she wrote a book about a teenager and finally THAT BOOK SOLD THIS WEEK!!! Oh and its sequel too!

I’ll stop writing in the third person now to say I am going to be a published author! The amazing publishing house Little Brown (you might have heard of ‘em – Little Brown publishes THE LOVELY BONES and Malcolm Gladwell and James Patterson and something called TWILIGHT) bought my young adult novel THE MOCKINGBIRDS in a two-book deal this week and if you see someone floating up in the clouds, it’s probably me, still on a cloud nine (where, incidentally, wearing five-inch heels all day doesn’t hurt).

The book will likely be in bookstores in 2010 or 2011 and it’s the story of a student-run, underground justice league at a prestigious boarding school and the complications that ensue during a date rape case. The group takes its name and inspiration from Harper Lee’s TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.

This is truly nothing short of a dream come true. That I get to write for teens is the most wonderful part because I think the best stories being written today are for young adults.

There were many ups and downs on this path to soon-to-be-published-authordom and I am grateful for all the twists and turns that brought me here because the editor I am working with — Nancy Conescu (MY EDITOR! I have an editor!!!) – is strategic, smart and yes, very, very nice. And none of this would have been possible without my agent Andy McNicol at William Morris Endeavor, who is the very definition of savvy. She knows the business AND she knows storytelling. She believed in my book thoroughly and never stopped fighting for it.

So to all of you who aspire to something — don’t give up your dreams because if you keep pursuing them they have a funny way of coming true.