In those days, it was easy to steal books from the library.
There were no electromagnetic sensors hidden inside the binding. Librarians, at least in New Paltz Middle School, didn’t wander around the stacks. They sat behind the counter by the front door and cheerfully checked out books, which just meant slipping a card from the envelope glued to the back cover and stamping, or writing in by hand, the date due.
Every week, my class would line up and march down the hall for our weekly trip to the library. It was one of my favorite activities in school. (That, and playing Doctor Dodgeball in gym class. I didn’t have the best aim, but I was fearless. And fast.)
We’d choose the books we wanted to read at home, then we’d bring them back the following week to be returned.
Authors will often cite a beloved English teacher or a kindly librarian as their savior, because that person introduced them to the world of books and reading– a prerequisite, of course, for becoming a writer. But I attribute my love of books to my stealth and lack of ethics.
I was on a panel of authors one year, at a conference for the Connecticut State Reading Association, when the inevitable question came up. When did you first know you wanted to be a writer?
It’s a common question and I usually answer it with the — very true — story about my 6th grade language arts teacher. He was the first to make me feel that I could write creatively. But that day in Hartford, I suppose because the audience was all adults, I told another — very true — story.
“When I was a kid in New Paltz,” I began,“ I loved books so much— not just the stories but the books— that sometimes, when I read a book, I wanted to keep it. I’d bring it back to the library so it was stamped that I had returned it on time, and then the next week, I’d find the book on the shelf, tuck it under my sweater or inside my loose-leaf binder, and walk out with it.”
After telling this story, I did feel the need to explain a little about my life at that time, how my step-mother who I had lived with and called “Mom” for seven years decided to keep my sister, her biological daughter, and “return” me to my father while I was away at summer camp. It was an all-around pretty bad year – a lot of loss –so maybe that’s some kind of excuse. But in truth, I don’t think that was it. In some ways, I felt that those books were already mine. After all, weren’t they written just for me? Weren’t those words speaking directly to me? Telling my story, my feelings. Letting me know I was not alone. 
For me, being a writer, writing those books, is the same thing. I transform my story, my feelings, my loss, and my dreams into words. And if they can connect with someone else, if they can inspire another 12-year-old girl to slip it covertly into their sweater because they feel it was written just for them, I feel less lonely.