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The collective of young adult and middle grade authors is growing by leaps and bounds in Arizona, and the cool thing is, we all like each other. Last year we had a party for ourselves and it was a blast. This year we said to each other, "Hey, let's invite some more people who love books as much as we do." So we set a date (Dec 10) and a location (my house), and the eight authors who could attend got busy inviting as many of the teachers, librarians, and booksellers we could think of. And then we asked them to invite a coworker or two.

Word got out. I remember saying, "The more the merrier!" Some teachers and librarians from over a hundred miles away were planning to come. We were amazed and excited. We were about to have our own mini ALA + NCTE + BEA convention right in my house!

In early December, I started mentally adding up the potential number of people who might show up to such an event (free food and wine!) and for about 24 hours, I panicked. What if everyone we invited actually showed up? And then I remembered that lots of people plan to stop in at an open house, but when the time actually comes, things happen, or they realize I live in the boonies, and they can't make it after all. So I panicked again. What if nobody showed up? I figured at least my fellow authors would come, so we could hang out and feel like losers all together.

But my author buddies convinced me that people would come. So I started thinking, hey, if we're having our own little convention, we need to give stuff away. We need SWAG! I sent out a message to my awesome team at Simon & Schuster (Simon Pulse and Aladdin), asking if they had any arcs or finished books floating around to contribute. They said "Sure!" and got busy, reaching out to other S&S imprints as well. The other authors contacted their publishers too. In addition, we all donated books of our own to the cause -- Arizona has had some tough times and no funding for books in libraries and schools lately. We wanted to help, and we wanted to get more new books into our local schools and libraries.

The week of the party, I left on a three-day trip, and when I returned, my husband took me by the hand and said "Come with me." He showed me the entryway of our home. There were nearly twenty boxes stacked high from some amazingly awesome and generous publishers.

"Oh, my," I said. And then I looked at him. "This is going to be the Best. Party. Ever."

He nodded. We set up on the ping pong table. There were hundreds of books, posters, bookmarks, reading guides, socks, thumb drives...and more and more books. It was overflowing and glorious.