One year ago today, my phone rang at 7 a.m. It was my agent. "Are you up?" she asked. "Yes," I said. (I wasn't). It was 10 a.m. in Toronto and I knew she'd waited until the first respectable moment to call and so it must be important. "Have you checked your email yet?" she said. "No." "Go and check your email. I had a crazy email at 5 a.m. You need to print it out and frame it." The email was from the executive publisher of Random House, Canada. She said she'd been up all night reading the manuscript of my novel, Shelter. She had to go to the Giller Awards that evening and was worried about the black circles she'd have under her eyes from reading all night. A few minutes later, she sent another email about her affection for the two sisters, Maggie and Jenny. Her enthusiasm for the novel was every writer's dream. The next few days were a glorious blur of competing bids from other publishers, but nothing could match the sweetness of that image I had of Louise Dennys propped up on her pillows, sending middle-of-the-night emails on her Blackberry about Shelter.