Every now and again, a day comes along in this strange world of publishing where you can say, "Oh, right. That's why I do this." Yesterday was that kind of day. One of our authors, the Ven. Yifa was awarded the Juliet Hollister award for interreligious dialogue from the Temple of Understanding. Gene and I were invited by Yifa to a fancy dinner in the United Nations dining room.

Now, if that weren't cool enough, Gene and I had to leave early because another of our authors, Wangari Maathai, was having a party, hosted by Random House, for her memoir, Unbowed. Wangari won the Juliet Hollister award last year, along with yet another of our authors, Thomas Keating.

All through the day, Wangari had been conducting interviews with the media: such as CNN, Leonard Lopate on WNYC, Terry Gross of "Fresh Air", and Charlie Rose. Unbowed climed into the high hundreds on Amazon.com, and even The Green Belt Movement is nearing 10,000.

A cool, cool day.