My friend, author/illustrator Jerrold Connors, just started a fun new initiative: #BlogFriday, a community blogging event with a fresh prompt every week. Check out his #BlogFriday post and take a look at his upcoming titles while you’re there! Here’s my entry for the prompt “Inscriptions.”

Stumbling across my first Meg Cabot book when I was 13 felt like a rare, fated bit of magic.

The public library in my hometown was teeny tiny. It was old, not particularly well-kept or well-lit, and never, ever had specific books you were looking for.

But that was its magic. It wasn’t a place where you quickly and efficiently picked up a story you already had in mind; it was an enchanted, liminal space where stories found you.

When 13-year-old me saw THE PRINCESS DIARIES on the one “Teen” shelf in the library, I was pleasantly surprised. I was very familiar with the Disney film, but I didn’t know there was a whole book series about Princess Mia. I needed a novel to read for a school project and thought, why not try it?

With the gift of hindsight, I realize now that this was a Moment: one of those seemingly insignificant actions that set off an important row of dominos in the scheme of my life—a memory that is now encapsuled in a border of shimmering white light when I replay it in my mind.

THE PRINCESS DIARIES was funny, engrossing, and palpably relatable like no book I had ever read before. I was immediately hooked.

If it seems like I post a lot of birthday cake photos on here, it’s because that was one time of year that the camera reliably came out in my house.

People who were young when the Beatles “invaded” America often describe hearing their music for the first time as finally knowing what it felt like to have something made just for them, something that lit up their minds and hearts in a way they never knew was missing. For me, an outcast, bookish middle schooler in the early 2000s, discovering THE PRINCESS DIARIES was the post-Y2K equivalent of seeing “I Want to Hold Your Hand” performed on The Ed Sullivan Show.

In the following years, I would devour every Meg Cabot book I could get my hands on. Her stories were portals to a different, kinder world (one I desperately needed as a teen) with fictional friends that I deeply related to, who I could laugh and swoon and dream with when reality became lonely and, at times, near unbearable.

Her books inspired me to create stories of my own, ones that I hoped would bring about the same safe, joyful, empowered feelings that Meg had given me.

So, at 18, when a friend asked me to join her at a Meg Cabot signing, I was both exhilarated and slightly terrified.

We had to drive about half an hour to get to the bookstore, my friend at the wheel, and me daydreaming in the passenger seat with my carefully selected copy of PRINCESS IN TRAINING, the sixth book in the PRINCESS DIARIES series, nestled in my lap.

The author talk that Meg gave was as funny and wonderful as her writing. My heart glittered like a diamanté tiara as I listened, rapt the entire time.

Afterwards, as my friend and I waited in line to get our books signed, I agonized over what I would say to Meg. Would I tell her that she inspired me to write novel manuscripts of my own? Would that come across as too much? Would I slip into anxious hyper babble, or would I find myself unable to eke out a single word?

But I was soon distracted from my nervous thought loop when the bookstore employees began walking around to take down names on sticky notes for our inscriptions.

“If you purchased a book here today, you get one personalized autograph from Meg Cabot,” the bookseller said. “Books brought from home will get just a signature.”

I froze. I wasn’t aware of this rule ahead of time. I was always prepared, a capital G Goody-two-shoes who followed directions to the letter without fail. And now, during this important, potentially once in a lifetime opportunity, I was about to fumble completely.

(Before I tell you what I’m about to say next, please know this: I am a proud and frequent supporter of independent book stores now, and I would never go to an event without making a purchase. I lovingly ask you to hold that fact in your mind and heart as you read on.)

Me being an outstanding bookish citizen on a recent trip to Main Street Books, a super cool indie in St. Charles, MO!

I stood there with my not-newly-purchased book, devastated that I wouldn’t get a personalized copy. Maybe it didn’t matter that much at the end of the day. But having that little bit of proof that I, MADELEINE, met my writing idol Meg Cabot would have meant the world.

Despite my copy of PRINCESS IN TRAINING being read through multiple times and purchased secondhand to begin with, it still looked mostly new, aside from one tiny crease on the inside of the dust cover. I wondered if I could just maybe luck my way into a personalized inscription.

When the bookseller came by with her sticky notes and pen, I smiled brightly and hoped for a miracle.

She smiled back, taking in my glossy copy of a book that meant so much to me. I waited for her to pass by or shake her head and chide me, but instead, she simply stopped in front of me.

“Name?” She asked, clicking her pen into action.

I didn’t correct her.

At this point in my rule-following, make-no-waves life, it was one of my biggest rebellions yet. Sometimes I still feel a LITTLE guilty, but mostly I am so happy to have this pilfered treasure.

Meeting Meg was incredible. I didn’t end up telling her about my writing, but she told me she loved my outfit, and I just about DIED. I am still riding that high over a decade later.

The outfit in question, photographed on a later date, with my offline husband lovingly censored.

I will still, on occasion, treat myself to a signed Meg Cabot book (ordered from Judy Blume’s bookstore in Key West) when I’m not preordering copies from my own local indie. (If you think this is, in part, an attempt to show you how I am atoning for my past transgression and supporting independent bookstores with my whole chest now, you are correct.)

Signed copy of NO WORDS from the Little Bridge Island series.

Today, I have a small (ever-growing) collection of books signed by published friends that 18-year-old me would be absolutely thrilled about. And maybe someday I will sign one of my own stories for YOU, dear reader.

Every now and then, I take out my copy of PRINCESS IN TRAINING just to look at the inscription and remind myself how far I’ve come, how much radiant joy stories can bring, and that I do, in fact, rule.

The Inscription Thief

In the Belly

Persephone and The Hermit