Okay, the truth is, I don’t know if I really had anything to do with this fantastic chain of events, but I like to think I do. Here’s what happened.

A couple of months ago, my grandmother said she wanted to buy the Betsy-Tacy books and I told her I’d order them for her online and have them shipped to her house. However, when I got online I discovered they are out of print and unavailable! I remembered that Meg Cabot is a huge fan of B&T, and I happened to have her email address because we’d chatted about something once or twice, so I emailed her. My email went something like:

Meg! Can you believe the Betsy-Tacy books are OP? You must use your considerable power to do something!

She emailed me back something like:

OP! I don’t know what I can do, but I’ll try. They’ll probably cite the bottom line though. By the way, I’m giving a speech at this summer’s Betsy-Tacy Convention.

Well, as you can imagine, that got me very excited! I mean, I knew they had the convention every three years, but I’d totally forgotten all about it! I’ve always wanted to go AND I’ve always wanted to meet Meg Cabot in person, so now I have my big chance! As you may know, if you hang out here (or if you heard me yell it from the top of the mountain), my fabulous agent sold my book!!!! And despite publishing being very slow, it is likely that I will have a little money this summer from it and so I am going to the Betsy-Tacy Convention!!! Woohooo!

Okay, and now for the extra cool part. There’s more? Yes, of course. I mean, I don’t expect you to be excited about me getting to go (unless you’re going too!). Here’s the exciting bit. The Betsy-Tacy books are being re-issued!!!!!! And guess who is writing the forwards? No, not me. Meg Cabot!!!

Now, when I found this out (thanks Anne), I immediately emailed Meg to find out if this was because I’d mentioned it to her, but I’ve not heard back. And I don’t expect to any time soon because according to her blog, she has over 7000 emails in her inbox! But I’ll be sure to ask her when I see her this summer. Maybe she’ll sign my newly issued B-T books!

I told my agent that I didn’t think I really had anything to do with this because publishing works so slowly that they were probably already in the works and when Meg checked into it they jumped at the chance of having her write the forwards, and he said, “Never doubt what you can do!” Yeah…that is one of the many reasons I adore my agent!