It takes a village!

It's two days before THE OTHER HALF OF LIFE officially comes out and I just wanted to take a moment to let people in on the little "secret" of how many people have helped me with this book along the way.  I recognize a lot of them in my acknowledgements page in the actual book, from my writing group (Lynne Heitman, Mike Wiecek, Samantha Cameron) to my writing partner, Cara Crandall, my babysitter, Maggie O'Brien, and the many experts I interviewed including my "chess angel" Luke Calhoun and Herbert Karliner, who so kindly shared his memories of being on the St. Louis.  Of course there's also my family--specifically my parents, my grandparents, and husband.  And everyone at Knopf, including my amazing editor, Nancy Hinkel.

All those people have helped along the way during the writing of the book and more recently I've also had amazing assistance from even more friends.  I feel so lucky that I have an army of friends who are willing to share their talents with me in order to help my career.  My good friend Caranine Smith designed my entire website and I think it's awesome!  My neighbor, Ken Bernstein, took the photographs of me that appear on the website.  And Lynne Heitman came with me recently to a talk I gave at the Maimonides School and videotaped it.  I have since edited the video and posted it on youtube so people can get a slice of the program I offer schools about the St. Louis and my book.

I couldn't have done all this without you all--thank you!!