"I think when you're writing challenging work, you can easily be misunderstood. So I'm so grateful for Indies Introduce and for the Children's Institute experience, because before you're starting to see ARC readers putting up reviews, you're getting this clear validation that all of your hard work--people do see it. People do appreciate it. To be a debut where your first big author event is on a scale like that, where you have an audience of just hundreds of people, that was really overwhelming, but so, so validating. Those moments where that fear still rises up, you get a bad review or whatever, you remind yourself: no piece of art is for everybody, and the people who need this book--thanks to these incredible booksellers who are working so hard to get it in the hands of readers--they're going to find it."