Strange, happy plot twist: I am now in an author group with Margaret. The next day she gave a speech, that I still remember, about the power of children's stories in an ever changing world and received a standing ovation from a thousand aspiring writers. Margaret could not have been lovelier, and we had a very nice conversation until other people began to murmur: "Isn't that Margaret Peterson Haddix standing over there?" and she was mobbed by admirers. Somehow I gathered up the nerve to walk up to her and introduce myself, using the very original "Hey, I think maybe we both live in Ohio?" line as my opener. Margaret Peterson Haddix is a giant in the children's book world, the author of dozens of best-selling and critically acclaimed books for children, an author of books I had read over the years and introduced my own children to, and also, it so happened, the author who was going to be the closing keynote speaker at the conference the next day. Several years ago, before I was first published, I went to a children's writers conference in New York City and was hanging out at the Saturday night cocktail party and feeling a little shy and out of place, when I noticed another writer standing off to the side, alone.
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