I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was 10 or so, when I was a devourer of Nancy Drew mysteries – under the covers, with flashlights, long after lights out on overnights with another avid reader friend. I wanted to churn out volume after volume and be adored by preteens like Carolyn Keene was. More immediately, I wanted a complete set of Carolyn Keene’s work for Christmas, although our family, being Jewish, didn’t celebrate Christmas. I may have gotten one or two volumes over the years but the complete set never showed up under our mantelpiece (which served as our Christmas tree). It wasn’t that my parents opposed my reading; they were just devotees of the public library, and besides, probably thought of Nancy Drew as one step away from comic books and so not worth spending money on.