Today seems to be the perfect day for this post. It's December and well, it's warm -- unseasonably warm.

Ten years ago, I was blessed enough to follow up the success of my debut novel: Sugar with my sophomore novel: The Warmest December.

The book was well received by the pubic and critics alike. My publisher was happy with it - so much so that they nominated it for a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It didn't win - but as they say, it was an honor to have been nominated.

When I suggested the book be reissued by my current publisher; Johnny Temple, founder of Akashic Books - readily agreed.

I wanted to make the reissue special and so approached James Frey; first for a blurb and then later asked if he wouldn't mind writing the Forward -- and he too, readily agreed.

Last December, I spent a month in Ohio with my cousins and woke up one snowy morning with an idea for a new book cover. I asked my twelve year old cousin if she would be the model for the cover and she...readily agreed...I took the photo myself..right in their backyard.

The one thing that I wanted to do, but for some reason could not bring myself to do was write an explanation about the story. You see when the book was first published in 2001, I received a number of emails and was asked in dozens of interviews if the story of Kenzie Lowe was my story. Time and time again I denied it. 

Everything is about timing.

My father was still alive, my parents still married...and I was not yet ready to publicly admit to a life that was at times so difficult and terrifying that in order to survive and thrive, I had convinced myself that it wasn't as terrible as all of that. But it was.

However, I have made peace with that little girl, my mother and my father and do not love them any less because of it. In fact, I will say that the experience has made me who I am today - and I kinda like me.

I guess this is what I wanted to add to the reissue - but at the time, I could not find the words - or maybe the words could not find me. And so instead, I placed a photo of my father and I on the dedication page, because sometimes a picture speaks a thousand words.

I suppose, The Warmest December came out of my need to understand and forgive. It was probably the most difficult and most freeing thing I've ever written. If bloodletting could be translated into words - for me The Warmest December would be just that.

As you may now realize, the story is quite significant for me and to me and not only because it chronicles an episode in my life that mirrors the lives of so many, but because of the honor bestowed upon it by the very author I've idolized for nearly three decades. 

Back in 1984 the sister of my then boyfriend loaned me a copy of BELOVED by Toni Morrison. I will admit that I had not heard of her - I was less than a year out of high school and was still entranced by the offerings of Stephen King. 

Beloved spoke to me in away that no other book had. I was hooked. Strung out. Dazzled. 27 years later...I still feel the same way about the woman and her writing.

And so today, as I sit here on this warm December day, reminiscing about my life thus far - I thought it would be nice to share the letter from the Nobel Laureate (addressed to my then editor) that in many ways, changed the course of my career....