If Everyone Started Off The Day Singing,

We All Mess Up. It's What We Learn From Our Mistakes That Matters.

And Books Are Such An Empowering Way To Give Voice To Some Of These Kids Who Aren't Yet Ready To Tell Their Story. Or Don't Know What Their Story Is, Or Are Trying To Figure It Out.

Every Girl On The Planet Was Familiar To One-last-time E-mail Checks.

I've Written A Lot Of Novels For Teens And Tweens ... But I'd Never Really Tackled The North Carolina Side Of Me. And It's So Strong And So Important, And Yet I Hadn't Acknowledged It. And So One Of The Things I Wanted To Do In "shine" Is Take That On.

I Think That Ties In With Issues Of Identity As Well - That Sometimes There Are Parts Of Us We Want To Hide, And Then There's Other Times We Say, "you Know What? Nope. Done Hiding That Part."