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Happy anniversary, readergirlz!
In honor of our seven-year anniversary, we're catching up with rgz divas and featured authors. Kicking off our anniversary series (or shall we say, anniver-series?) of posts is none other than our own Melissa Walker.

7 Things You Don't Know About Me:
1. I have kept a diary every year since third grade.
2. I have been known to sip pickle juice straight from the jar.
3. My dad passed away 10 years ago, but I can still hear his voice when I need advice.
4. I love the idea of collecting sea glass, but I'm lazy about actually doing it when I'm at the beach.
5. I find it delightful when cocktails are served in their proper glasses.
6. I sing show tunes to my two-year-old in hopes that one day she'll be my Broadway companion (my husband isn't into musicals).
7. I still think the world looks magic if someone is blowing bubbles nearby.

We'll be posting updates and tidbits from familiar faces all month long here at the readergirlz blog. Stay tuned and celebrate with us!

I’m not the perfume-wearing type (not that that’s a bad type, I just never seem to find anything I like!) but I love a good scent, especially in a bar of soap.  I discovered Mistral’s Wild Blackberry soap late last summer and it’s by far the best smelling soap I’ve ever used.  It smells so good in fact I keep my stash in my workshop.  The scent of tart, juicy berries mixed with, what seems to me, powdery-musky violets make me think of lazy afternoons sitting in the sun.

Newbery Award winner Patricia MacLachlan (pictured, via) has signed up with Albert Whitman & Company to write a prequel for Gertrude Chandler Warner‘s popular kidlit series, The Boxcar Children.

The not-yet-titled project will be released in September 2012 for the 70-year anniversary of the book’s debut. An eBook version will be published simultaneously from Open Road Integrated Media.

MacLane gave this quote in the press release: “Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny are kind to one another and embody the true sense of family. They are resourceful and positive. I find them both true children and true heroes at the same time. It occurs to me that perhaps their parents were the same. I’m looking forward to exploring that idea and more.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

For Poppytalk’s Spring Color Week.

Teen's Best Friend is a big reader. She has also modeled in the past and is being recruited to model again. So when I heard about the Violet books, I had to get them for her. And she really liked them - a huge compliment when you know how much she reads.

Later, today I'll stop by Annie Blooms Books and get her the latest: VIOLET IN PRIVATE by Melissa Walker.

No less than the New York Times loves the series: “It’s a hard sell, asking readers to muster sympathy for the congenitally gorgeous whose job it is to wear designer clothes and walk. In ‘Violet on the Runway,’ Melissa Walker pulls it off," raved Holly Brubach in The New York Times.

VIOLET IN PRIVATE is the third novel in the series about Violet— the wallflower who blooms into an international modeling star—until she realizes there may be more to life than the runway…

Everyone knows her as Violet Greenfield, the supposedly cultured and worldly nineteen-year-old with sky-high confidence because she’s done fashion weeks internationally. But the truth is, modeling has done little for Violet’s self-esteem. And now that she’s finally headed to college, she’s terrified that she’ll turn back into that girl who blended into the walls all throughout high school…

Violet’s friends in fashion are only a two-hour train ride away in New York City, and they all think she’s crazy to stop modeling. But her best friend Roger hopes she’ll go back to being the girl next door. Of course, things have been weird between them ever since they kissed—and now he’s got a girlfriend. So the question is: if she’s not “Violet on the Runway” anymore, who exactly is she?

Melissa knows what she is talking about, because she's a former editor at ELLEgirl and Seventeen magazines. Visit her at melissacwalker.com, or at myspace.com/melissacwalker.

I asked, Melissa answered
A. What's the scariest thing that's ever happened to you? Bonus question: have you used it, in any way, in a book?
M. This question kind of scares me because I have to think about scary things. I guess I'd say that when my dad died suddenly a few years ago it was pretty much the realization of the most terrifying thing I ever thought could happen. It was awful, of course, and I still miss him every day, but I survived. And now I know that I can survive the scariest thing imaginable to me. So that makes me feel strong somehow. I haven't used that one yet, but I might....

A. Mystery writers often give their characters an unreasoning fear - and then make them face it. Do you have any phobias, like fear of spiders or enclosed spaces?
M. Just recently, I've started being scared of flying. Does that count? It's so lame, and it doesn't stop me from traveling, but I just get really jittery during takeoff. Then I'm okay.

A. Do you have a favorite mystery book, author, or movie?
M. Clue! Book Chic, a great reviewer, talked about it on a blog recently, and I adore the movie and the game. It's the ultimate mystery experience.

A. At its heart, every story is a mystery. It asks why someone acts the way they did - or maybe what will happen next. What question does your book ask?
M. The mystery of Violet in Private is really about how Violet can find her voice and speak truths about what she knows is right to express who she really is--in love, at school, in the fashion world... everywhere.

A.Is there a mystery in life that you are still trying to figure out?
M. So many. But one main one is: WHAT do they put in Fiber One bars that make them so yummy. They're seriously so sweet and yummy, but also Bob Greene approved! If Oprah's trainer says yes to food, I'm scarfing it down. And these are like candy! [Full disclosure: Melissa is right! The chocolate ones taste like oatemal chocolate chip cookie dough.]

Melissa is hosting a big Violet contest until September 1.