Much like a gardener planting seeds in the ground, authors' story ideas germinate from many sources, from the intentional mixing of ideas or seeds, if you will, that are first researched, experimented, and finally, with a deep breath, planted within a story, careful to make certain that, with a little luck and a lot of perseverance, something close to a miracle will happen. And not only will readers revel in the painstaking cultivation of the story, but the author, the garde

Nationally syndicated columnist and winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary, Leonard Pitts, Jr., reminded us last fall when To Kill a Mockingbird was removed from a Mississippi school board because it "makes some people uncomfortable" that it is supposed to make people uncomfortable. I am certainly not suggesting that my debut YA-novel, Honeysuckle Holiday, could one day sit alongside the classic read on a library shelf (although one reviewer did compare it to that