Now that it has its own website and Twitter feed (Books these days, she says, in grandmotherly wonder), I can officially spread the word here:

This is STARRY-EYED, a forthcoming anthology from Running Press Kids, and I’ve got a short story in it.

The book is all about the performing arts; essays from performers like Clay Aiken and Lea Salonga and Jesse Tyler Ferguson are intermixed with short stories by the likes of Alex Flinn (Beastly), Kiersten White (Paranormalcy), Claudia Hand (Unearthly)…and me.  Mine’s called “A Midwinter Night’s Dream,” and it’s a twisted little YA piece that I’m actually rather excited about–so if you know any young readers with a love of music and theatre, please point them in our direction.

STARRY-EYED will be released on October 8, but you can already pre-order it from IndieBound here or from Amazon here.  You can add it to your lists on Goodreads and read the first (glowing!) reviews too.

And now, on to the slightly less happy news.

My agent, the utterly fabulous Chris Richman, has decided to leave the agenting world.  He’s setting off on new adventures in PR and Philadelphia, and I’m sure he’ll be just as utterly fabulous at whatever he does next.  (You can read Upstart Crow’s announcement about Chris’s departure here.)  And I’m going to miss him.

Back in 2008, I had been sending out query letters one at a time (exactly what you’re not supposed to do) to literary agents, waiting for months for their it’s-just-not-quite-right-for-us responses, and growing ever more certain that no one was ever going to say yes anyway, when I got an email from Chris.  He was a junior agent at Firebrand Literary, and he had found my submission — the first few chapters of The Shadows — in the slush pile.  And he loved it.

I sent him the rest of the book.  He loved that, too.

I remember his very first phone call, when he offered to represent me and my book.  I paced around and around the kitchen of our old rented farmhouse, clutching the receiver, absolutely overwhelmed with disbelief and terror.  Of course, this was before I learned that Chris was a total Salinger/Vonnegut/Dahl nerd with an encyclopedic knowledge of The Simpsons, just like me.   But I could already tell that my book was in the right hands.

I was Chris’s very first client.  Within a few months, he had five major publishers interested in The Shadows… And that’s how my life changed completely.    I’ll never stop being grateful to him for being one of the very first people to believe in me.

Upstart Crow Literary, the agency where Chris (and I) eventually moved, has been extremely good to me.  This summer I signed on with another Upstart agent, the marvelous Danielle Chiotti.  I know that I’m in good hands once again.