TBT: My first national publication was this poem in 'TEEN magazine, in December 1977, when I was fifteen. I'd written it the previous summer. Like so many other "firsts" at that age, you never, ever forget the first time. On a Sunday night in early November I was at the bus terminal waiting for the chartered bus to take us back to school. The December issue of 'TEEN was there on the rack, like this was just any other day. The title was in bright pink letters. The model was Lindsey Erwin. I reached for it. My hands were shaking. I opened it to the page indicated on the table of contents. In spite of the acceptance letter that had arrived in October—on mint-green paper with the 'TEEN logo in darker green letters at the top, all the way from Los Angeles—right up until the moment I found my poem in the magazine, with my picture and my name, I was 100% sure it wasn't going to be there. It was too much to be true, even at the point. But it was, and it's one of the happiest memories of my adolescence, that "first." There have been others over the years since then—first magazine article, first cover story, first book, first award, first actual fan letter—but that moment at the magazine stand, on that dark December Sunday night, was holy. 
