No Such Thing as the Real World: A Book is Born, a Possibility (i.e., Teen Writing Competition) Sounds

Today is April 21, which is another way of saying that today is the birthday of No Such Thing as the Real World, a HarperTeen anthology that bears the subtitle: Stories about growing up and getting a life. "What's the line that separates childhood from the 'real world'? the back jacket asks. "And what happens when it's nothing you imagined it would be?"

There are six of us telling stories here—An Na, M.T. Anderson, K.L. Going, Chris Lynch, Jacqueline Woodson, and myself—and it is a very happy