We’re a little late to the party, but here goes…

1. We spent an enormous amount of our first few weeks as a group buying and then rejecting a series of coffee machines.

2. Our copier breaks down an average of ten times a day.

3. Our working title for a book with Heifer International, suggested by Julia, was “For the Love of a Cow.”

4. We are trying to eat more healthfully, but Katie’s mother keeps sending us See’s Candies from California, which we polish off within seconds of arrival.

5. Debbie always has her laptop in front of her, even during meetings. She is capable of sending as many as fifty e-mails during a half-hour conversation.

6. Despite allegedly representing futuristic publishing, Bob has others post his blogs and only recently learned how to copy and paste.

7. Sarah Burningham could give Martha Stewart a run for her money

8. We prefer yelling down the hall to meetings.

9. Katie Salisbury speaks Chinese.

10. After working on Green Porno with Julia our intern Yitz said “I’ve never had to write the word penis so many times in my life.” 

11. Ezra Miller has been known to call Julia “J-Rod”

12. Debbie’s office is unofficially called “the clubhouse”

13. At HS Twitter is a noun, a verb, and a way of life.

14. For Christmas, Bob baked from scratch, hundreds of little gingerbread loaves for all of our colleagues and authors; Sarah and Katie wrapped them up like little elves; Julia and Debbie did nothing but sheepishly say “you’re welcome” to all those who thanked us.

15. We eat most lunches in the office (aka “the clubhouse.” See #12) — but try to invite one new interesting person up every day to dine with us. For many months we ordered the same thing from the same place: ‘Wichcraft. We’ve just started to venture beyond the ‘Wich.

16. We have 3 fabulous interns who work for college credit: Yitz, Kathryn, and Martha.

17. Before we started our blog we spent a month sending each other practice blog posts. Debbie’s posts often got vetoed by Bob. Bob’s were too long at the beginning — but now we call him Blogger Bob because he’s got the hang of it. Sarah and Julia’s were always perfect.

18. Before we post a blog, we email it to each other and all hold hands and agree that it’s ok to post.

19. We’ve just moved into new offices – still on the 26th floor – which means this is Debbie’s 4th office at HarperCollins, Bob’s 3rd, Julia’s 3rd and Sarah’s 4th.

20. Debbie has become the office online “news” master and often knows about breaking news before the news-breakers themselves.

21. Bob tells us that he plays the cello, but we’ve never actually seen it.

22. Katie loves PIX. And DAM. And Telescope. And CDW. All of which are separate systems to route various elements of each book.

23. Sarah and the web developer don’t even introduce themselves on the phone anymore. They talk that much.

24. Katie is the floor fire warden, and Debbie is the “bathroom checker” in case of emergency.

25. Bob is obsessively on time. The rest of us aren’t. Therefore we usually go to meetings separately.