also

Also went on retreat in October. This is our seventeenth year meeting in October to write and read and cook and eat and gossip and share our work in the evenings with one another. We've grown from a few books between us to many.

Our books have won a Caldecott, been National Book Award finalists, New York Times bestsellers, unsold gems, and little loves we have nurtured as we've watched them make their ways in the world. Likewise, we have mourned some of them as we've watched them go out of print. We've celebrated every scrap of success along the way.

We write picture books, board books, early readers, middle grade fiction, non-fiction, young adult fiction, poetry -- we run the gamut. But our biggest, most important boast is our long friendship.

We are moms, grandmas, wives, single women, main/sole breadwinners, artists, dreamers, business women. As we've grown older together in these 17 years, we've had our hearts broken apart from time to time, and we've each soared to the heights. We've held each other's hands and whispered our secrets. We've laughed so hard our sides have hurt. We've cried in one another's arms.

We've birthed dozens of stories. Many have made their way into the world to young readers. Many more are being born. I've listened to the heartbeats of these stories, through the stethoscope of nightly readings, in October. They are strong, true stories that will change the world. We are strong, true women who have changed one another.

I love October.