OMGHOLYCRAP

Okay, so this has nothing to do with teaching in Korea, but I am excited beyond all reckoning by this and I just had to share.

I am a huge fan of a romance novelist named Carla Kelly, who also happens to hold a master's in military history. Once upon a time, she posted on a message board about a journal article she'd written on sanitation in frontier military forts, and me being me, I told her I'd love to read it. We e-mailed, she sent me a copy of the article, I told her I really enjoyed it, and at some point during the exchange, she told me she liked my name and could she use it in a romance novel sometime? Well, um, let me think! I told her absolutely, and then kind of forgot about it as work ate my life.

Can you tell where this is going?

Yes. Today on the same message board where I first bumped into her, I saw the following post by Ms. Kelly herself:

In the novel I'm currently working on (due to the publisher Dec. 15), my heroine is named Nana Massie, after a reader. This novel takes place during the bad bad days of the blockade of England in 1808-1809, and is named Worthy.

And my head exploded.

Can you believe it?!!!! I am not only going to be a romance novel heroine, but I'm going to be a heroine for one of my absolutely favorite authors of all time!!!!

Of course, I'm bracing myself for the moment when the publisher says, "That name is a disaster... can't you go with something like Louise?" But come on. This is still the awesomest thing to happen to me, well, ever. Or at least since I married Justin :) (Insert "awww" here).

God bless the Internet!