…you would think that, after nine months of pregnancy, I wouldn’t have been so surprised when I woke up that long-ago winter night and found myself in labor.  And yet I remember turning on the light, looking at myself in the mirror, and saying aloud, “You’re going to have a baby?  You’re going to have a baby!”  It seems I’d carried that child for so long, and gotten so accustomed to having her be part of me, and me alone, I’d begun to think things would go on like that forevermore.

But my daughter had other ideas.  And so, it seems, does my new book.   MO WREN, LOST AND FOUND, makes its leap into the world tomorrow.  I remember a year ago, when I first saw FOX STREET on a book store shelf.  Part of me was thrilled and proud, but another part–possibly just as large a part–felt anxious and protective of the book, out there all on its own in the big world, without me.  Like my children, it’s managed an independent life very well.  FOX STREET no longer belongs to me, but to its readers.  And as of tomorrow, so will MO WREN.

Gulp.