I have the best mom in the world. The best mom for a writer. The best, you have no idea. I was just writing up a draft of the acknowledgments for my novel and got all teary-eyed thinking about what to say about her.

She made me my favorite macaroni and cheese the night before Thanksgiving and she opened the oven while it was baking to reveal a congratulatory message about my novel:

That says YEAH DANI, written on the top in paprika! (I thought at first it said something else!) Dani is, of course, for the title of the book, which I think is feeling more and more real to all of us now that we found it on Amazon.

I’d post her recipe—macaroni and cheese so divine we called it “heaven”—but it’s her secret and we, her children, can’t ever seem to replicate it. She puts something magical in that sauce, and I may never know what it is.

I love my mom. I wouldn’t be a writer without her. Her heavenly macaroni and cheese is just an added bonus.