It’s my birthday today, so I hope you’ll indulge my navel-gazing. If you’d told three-year-old me about what my life eventually look like, she would have stared at you in disbelief. But if you’d told my amazing first grade teacher at Bay Vista Elementary, Virginia Halsey, that I’d grow up to be a writer, I think she would have said “of course.” (That’s me, third from right, second row from bottom.) Talk about coincidences, that boy, top right, center, @meachamandrew, my oldest friend, also grew up to become a journalist and a talented writer. If you’d told 1988 me that I’d quit my job at @ajcnews—a job that had been my dream for years, I’d have the reaction shown in this photo. But newspapers changed and I was not consulted. So then 1992 me published her first book, Every Crooked Nanny, and I had my first signing at the now, sadly defunct Oxford Books in Atlanta. Fast forward to this year, when my 34th novel came out and debuted at #5 on the New York Times bestseller list. Seventy-two-year-old me is still amazed, still a little dubious, still waiting for the moment my publisher wakes up & demands the money back. (We Irish are a superstitious lot.) But until then, Imma blow out the candles, eat all the cake & continue to count my blessings—and to thank all of you for helping my dreams come true. #happybirthdaytome #dontstopdreaming #writerlife #buymybookdammit
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