A huge thank-you to all the incredible writing friends and supporters I’ve made over the years. To Kim, Jessica, Jen, Tiffany, Bridey, and Roommate—my miracle friends. To Kristy, Tesia, Amanda, and Madeleine—for letting me be weird even in graduate school. To Elise-Merry, Amanda-Pippin, Kinner-Sam and Bobbi-Frodo—from Sarah-Smeagol, for letting me be weird from the very beginning. To my North Star mentors, Cindy Baldwin, Amanda Rawson Hill, and Ellie Terry, all the other amazing Pitchwars mentors, and to my incredibly supportive Pitchwars ’16 crew. I would truly be lost without you.

To Brianne Johnson, superagent and fairy godmother. Thank you, thank you, for being the first to see Libby’s story and believe it deserved to be told. You are a magic maker and wish granter, and I can’t believe how lucky I am that I was found by someone as masterful as you. To Brianne, Allie Levick, and the rest of the Writer’s House crew, thank you. And to Melissa Warten, for championing this book and for edit letters that inevitably make me whistle and go dang she’s good. If this book shines it’s because of you. To Melissa and the whole team at FSG/Macmillan, thank you for taking me and Libby on.

Lastly, to all the girls born with a missing chromosome. I know each of us has a different story with Turner syndrome, but I wrote this for you. I hope more than anything to meet you one day, and if you want, you can use the code word Cecilia Payne and I’ll give you a giant hug. You are what stars are made of. Here’s what I believe: I believe the maker of stars, the maker of the whole universe, made you. And you are his most perfect and precious creation, just the way you are.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

A writer! I also wanted to be a Broadway actress or a photographer for National Geographic.

When did you realize you wanted to be a writer?

Books have always been my best friends, so I’ve known I wanted to write since I can remember! But I think probably in my middle school creative writing classes is when I realized that it was actually a possibility.

What’s your favorite childhood memory?

My high school competed in the Shakespeare Competition at the Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City, and one of my all-time favorite memories was the epic closing awards ceremony where we totally dominated. (I’m not competitive at all … )

As a young person, who did you look up to most?

I thought my teachers were the absolute greatest people, and I wanted them to like me. I was one of those kids! But truly, it’s due to some incredible teachers that I found a love for writing.

What was your favorite thing about school?

I went to a teeny, tiny private school, so one of my favorite things was how everybody sort of participated in everything—theater, sports, writing competitions; everybody kind of did it all.