Episode One: Tasslyn Magnusson
In the first full episode of Liberating Lit, get to know the work of Dr. Tasslyn Magnusson. We talk about what brought Magnusson to the work of tracking and documenting book bans across the country, what inspires her advocacy, the things she's most proud of, and how she continues showing up every day.
Tasslyn Magnusson is a writer, teacher, poet, and lover of stories. She also works as an independent researcher examining censorship across the country with projects for EveryLibrary and PEN America. Please feel free to connect through her website at tasslynmagnusson.com.
Show Notes:
Dr. Tasslyn Magnusson's Book Censorship Tracking Document
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Damsel by Elana K. Arnold
Ride / Đạp Xe by Bao Phi and illustrated by Thi Bui
brown girl dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
Transcript:
Transcripts are lightly modified from the original recording. Sentences are more cohesive than in podcast conversation and repetition is removed for readability.
Tasslyn Magnuson understates her work on her website, calling herself, “a writer, a mom, and a bunch of other exciting things.” Those are all important and vital, but anyone who knows Tasslyn would call her many other things. Among them, she's known as a font of knowledge about the freedom to read. She's a nonstop advocate for authors and for freedom to read champions who are working on the ground to protect the right to read and access to diverse literature.And she's also a supportive, insightful ear for those looking for advice or help, or simply to blow off some steam as it relates to the hard work of literary advocacy.
She also happens to be Dr. Tasslyn Magnuson.
I got to know Taslan in 2021 when it became clear that book bans weren't happening at just one or two libraries. Something bigger and more coordinated was afoot. My covering of these stories paired so neatly with her tracking of those bands, and collaboration felt natural.
Welcome Taslin to Liberating Lit. I'm really thrilled to have you and cannot wait to talk with you.
Tasslyn (01:14)
Thanks. I'm very thrilled to be here.
Kelly Jensen/Liberating Lit (01:17)
Can you tell me who you are and what you do?
Tasslyn (01:23)
So the funny way of saying it is I’m Tasslyn Magnuson and I count book bans.
I love authors, I love illustrators, I love books, I love libraries, I'm a poet myself, and I fight for the right to read, although I fight for books and authors.
Kelly Jensen/Liberating Lit (01:54)
I mean, your coming to it makes sense from your background. But it is also one of those things that is, I suppose, is surprising this far into it, right? You probably thought a couple years but now, we're going into year six here. Your role has become so central to so many of the people who are involved in working for the freedom to read, whether it's supporting authors or helping people on the ground or helping librarians who are like, I just got my first challenge, what do I do about it?
Tasslyn (02:29)
Yeah, unfortunately lately it's even “I got my first death threat. I got my first being called a name.” Like it's so much more now than it once was. But yeah, this was supposed to be just to give it a shot, to help Laurie Halse Anderson a little bit, who said somebody should track things. And I was like, okay, I can make a spreadsheet, I'll do it.
Now we're in a fight that is critical to the world that we want to live in.
Kelly Jensen/Liberating Lit (03:10)
What's the spark? What got you into advocacy?
Tasslyn (03:16)
Okay, partially I say it as a joke, but Laurie Halse Anderson literally said, I'm seeing more bans in 2021 on Twitter. And I loved Speak. Speak meant so much to me. And I was like, Okay, Laurie Halse Anderson said someone should keep track. I'll keep track. And I made this really sad little Google spreadsheet, and I dropped it on the web and I said, “Hey, I hope this helps.”
And then people started contacting me. I thought there was a big organization somewhere that took care of things, that helped people, that authors heard about when their books are banned, that librarians had help. And all of a sudden I had like a line at my electronic door saying, “We need help. Can you help?” And I was like, “Well, okay. Isn't there anybody else?” And they're like, “No, there isn't.”
So I said I should start doing something. And I quickly found you. I knew about you sort of through like author-y things, but then I was like, wait a minute, these are the stories that I'm catching on Google. We should work together. and you were like, Yes, someone else should fight. We should all fight. And you had such great messages and clear storytelling. And I was like, I can just work with you. We can keep track.
I didn't expect it to last a year. I did expect it to last four years, five years. But there's nothing more important right now. Stories matter and I have been given this opportunity to help out.
Kelly Jensen/Liberating Lit (05:05)
Speak was the book that inspired my own advocacy when I was in high school. And it has held such an important place in my life and in the way I think about what libraries do, in the way I think about what advocacy is, and in the ways that I think about how important it is to fight for the right to read. And so hearing that similar thread is something I didn't know and is something that really resonates with me. I think for a lot of people who are in this fight and people who are thinking about getting involved in the fight for the freedom to read, there is this book or this story
that they connect with and that really helps inspire them. or an author, right? You mentioned Laurie–like more broadly as an author and she's been doing this work since that book came out, which was many, many, many years ago.
Tasslyn (06:23)
Laurie’s been doing this for decades and to think that she still has to do it is extraordinary to me.
Kelly Jensen/Liberating Lit (06:34)
Let's get a little bit more specific. I want to know the moment you realized how important documenting the books being challenged and censored really was. Where and how did you recognize and realize that you could be the record keeper here? That you had taken on something that has carried such importance and such weight, and that, you know, six years into this, people turn to that because it is an authoritative record.
Tasslyn (07:05)
Gosh, that's hard to tell exactly when it was. I know that when everything was chaotic in the first Trump time, in the pandemic time, having things to do was helpful to me. Like I knew that I couldn't spend all day worrying and wondering and freaking out. So if I had data to organize into lines on a spreadsheet, and somebody said that data was important and helped them be able to cope with their lives better. I was like, okay, this is a role I can do. Even now, when I work with communities, that's what I tell them: we aren't getting your books back, probably not. But you have to find the role that you can do to join the fight. There is a place for everybody, and apparently mine was to learn how to use Google spreadsheets.
Kelly Jensen/Liberating Lit (08:11)
What I love about your story though is it's so straightforward, right? I think there's this idea in advocacy that you have to be doing something big and bold and brave. And there are people who are doing that, and we need those people. But there are also people who are doing things like learning how to use a Google spreadsheet to document.
It's easy to look at it like “I'm putting things in a spreadsheet.” But what you're really doing is you're creating a historical record. You're creating this public documentation of what's happening and this resource that people can turn to when they're like, what is actually going on? How can I understand the scope of the thing? That is another role people can take. It can feel sometimes like, well, I'm comparing what I'm doing by filling out a spreadsheet to people who are showing up to meetings or who are filing lawsuits or who are doing any of these other number of things.
But every person has a role and finding those places and those skills where you can contribute is how the work gets done.
Tasslyn (09:20)
Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think that one of the most important things that I realized in the power of the spreadsheet early on. I'm a poet, I'm a creative writer, I have a PhD in American history. I could talk to you about stuff, but I didn't know how to help you in your situation. But I knew how to find resources and research, so I could do that.
But all of a sudden, as I was reading these articles and I can remember messaging you, I mean, like, you know, there's all these moms, they're doing the same thing. Like they're reading these books out loud. Isn't that weird? And you were like, Yeah, those are Moms for Liberty. And I remember thinking, who are Moms for Liberty? But I started to track it. Like, are you doing a performance? We could then begin to track the impact of these groups.
But we wouldn't have been able to do that without going, “Hey, look at this. This is kind of weird. What are they doing?”
Kelly Jensen/Liberating Lit (10:24)
Right. And that's one of the things that I've always found so valuable about what you've done. And so I'm so glad that I'm able to share with other people. It can help people understand where we find these trends, where we find what's going on and are able to tease that out from what feels just like an overwhelming amount of data. Because data in a document is meaningless without understanding what the data's doing or finding trends.
By having, you know, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of books–we're talking about the first couple of years here–you could look at that, you could look at those stories, you could see where they're happening, you could read the news and go, it's all starting in the same place in Florida. And then it's traveling to these other communities and it's the same books, and they're using the same tactics. That's when you start to pull these trends out, and you're like, okay, this is coordinated. Who's coordinating it?
That's where that data is so valuable because you tease these things out and you build a picture, which creates more roadmaps and more ways for people to get involved because they're learning and are able then to take that knowledge into their own community and make sure that it doesn't happen there. Or if it is happening there, be able to speak intelligently about it with the support and the data behind it.
Tasslyn (11:48)
Yeah, one of the most important things I still hear to this day when people look at the data is “I'm not alone.” And it’s always a marveling. People get attached to fancy big numbers and different graphics. But really what the data tells us is this is happening everywhere. You're not crazy. This is a problem and you are not alone.
Kelly Jensen/Liberating Lit (12:15)
That's such a huge thing, too, because it can feel so isolating. And it can feel isolating for anyone who is in this universe, right? From the author whose book is banned, from the librarian who has been approached about this, from the young person who wants to read the book but now can't access it. Like these are all people who feel isolated and alone. And they start to question like, is it just me? Am I missing something? Rather than realizing that, like, no.They aren't alone, number one, but number two, like they are not the problem. They are the victims of the situation.
Tasslyn (12:53)
Yes, yes, exactly.
Kelly Jensen/Liberating Lit (12:56)
So tell me who you learn from. Who are sort of the people who you've learned from? Either, you know, as we have worked through book bans in these last years, but even before that, too. Like are there groups, are there authors, are there activists or advocates who kind of stand out to you as folks that you've learned from in some way?
Tasslyn (13:20)
So I have a MFA in writing for children and young adults from Hamline. And I was there at a very particular time when there were a lot of conversations about diversity in Kid Lit. And Swathi Avasthi stood up at this really bad time in this big moment, and it's a long story, we don't have to go there, and she said, “No, this hurts me in a very public way.”
And I was like, wait a minute. I need to learn from this moment because there's a lot of people around me who were not learning from this moment, that they were looking and acting defensively, and I was like, wait, she's saying something really important. I need to listen.
I think that the best teachers I've had have been the ones that stopped things and made me listen and think.
Like that day, I know she was sitting right next to me too. So you could feel the power as she stood up and she used her voice and she said no. And I was like, “Okay, I'll follow. I'm listening, I'll follow, I'll figure out what I need to do next.” And I think that was really important, and there was a lot of learning in that program, not just about creative writing and writing for children and young adults, but about being a responsible author of literature for young people.
Kelly Jensen/Liberating Lit (15:43)
She's amazing. And anyone who hasn't read her work should absolutely go read her work. It's fantastic stuff.
But to thread and weave here: that is interesting and something that I've thought about quite a bit is how 15 years ago, not even 15 years ago, 10 years ago, we were talking about how important it was to have diverse books and how Book Expo America in I think it was 2013 had basically no authors of color, right? But they had Grumpy Cat. That really helped launch We Need Diverse Books. That really helped amplify the need to do better, to see who's in the room, to see who is not in the room, to see who needs to be at the table to build a longer table, right?
It's interesting to think about that and how much effort went into that and still goes into that. And look at the same people who are showing up now to continue the fight, even though the fight now is about keeping those books on shelves. It's about understanding that those books aren't just the stories within them, even though the stories within them are very important.
It's about who those stories represent and who is writing those stories. It's the people behind the books and the erasure, the active erasure that is happening to them in the library and beyond the library, beyond the bookshelves, right? It's one of those things that I think about a lot because so much progress happened, and it wasn't easy. It was tremendous work. And here we are now, having to fight even harder for less.
Tasslyn (17:01)
I do work with different organizations and PEN America is one of those. I remember there was a moment where as we were looking at all the lists, I said, these are all the most important new authors and illustrators in the last 10 years for children's literature that are being banned right now. And they were like, Really? And I remember trying to explain, and they're like, yeah, we did study diversity in Kidlet. I was like, yes, and that's what's being attacked. That's what's being erased right now.
Once we started counting the kinds of books, you begin to see people understand the erasure in a way that I hadn't seen yet. I mean, people who knew knew, but like the average little white lady sitting in reading in a library did not know. And now she knows a little bit thanks to that, like asking those questions. Who's missing? Why are these books here?
Kelly Jensen/Liberating Lit (18:04)
What keeps you going? This is hard work. This is long work. What gets you out of bed in the morning? How do you keep doing this?
Tasslyn (18:17)
Okay, so two really important answers to that. One is I really hate letting people win. Right? Like I am determined that these banners will not win. These are beautiful books that make a difference. All you have to do is watch one kid find a book for the first time to understand the power of a book to change your life. And so, like, you can't beat that away from kids. That's wrong. I will fight you for that.
They're beautiful books, and these authors are doing creative, incredible work and illustrations. I had no idea about graphic novels until I went to Hamline. And it was like a whole new world of storytelling. I loved it. So that's like one avenue that keeps me going. I will not let people win.
But also the people that I have found. There's a lot of interesting people who are fighting book bans, but there's a lot of good people. Fighters. You're a fighter, Stephana Farrell and Florida Freedom to Read, fighter. Like these people who just sort of woke up, looked around and said, What can I do? Okay, here I go.
You know, when you discover that you're the one who has to do the fighting, you can either look around and sit down and wait for somebody else or you just get started. The joy is not in when we have to talk about the bad stuff, like arranging security for an elected official. That's the bad stuff. But the joy is the connection, the support, the fact that I could help somebody in a moment when they needed some help and I was available.
That came because I said yes, I can do something.
Kelly Jensen/Liberating Lit (20:20)
You looked around and realized you were the adult in the room.
Tasslyn (20:24)
Yes. Wait, when did that happen? How did that happen?
Kelly Jensen/Liberating Lit (20:30)
Right? Exactly.
So I think that this next question kind of ties into that, knowing you and knowing what you've shared so far. That's this: what's been one of your proudest achievements during this era of censorship? If that question is too tough to answer, maybe what's the biggest “pinch me, this is my life” moment?
Tasslyn (20:58)
Okay, so I got to be on a call when George M. Johnson and Maia Kobabe met for the first time. Like, where they actually got to say to each other “Hey, we're one of the most banned authors in the country. Your work is amazing.” And to witness that moment where they were joking about being their being most banned, teasing each other. They loved to be there for each other. Being there was cool. I really loved that moment.
I'm probably most proud of the work I did to support the Mahmoud authors. Nobody was thinking about the books that were named in these cases and the authors that were on the other end of the hate delivered to them by an ecosystem that was just churning out crap. And so to be able to stand up and say, like, yes, you're not plaintiffs, you're not named in the case, but your books, the lovely, beautiful things that you created are being attacked and defiled and diminished by so many people–I can help you get through that moment. I think that was important.
Kelly Jensen/Liberating Lit (22:21)
I think it ties back to what you said about finding the thing that you could do, right? You saw that there was this whole opportunity to kind of be the support that these authors needed for their books and the reminder that the work that they do, the work that is being read and documented in the Supreme Court is more than this case. That it is about the kids it touches, it's about the adults it touches. It is far more than, you know, however a Supreme Court justice reads it literately or reads it, you know, the way that fits whatever their agenda is.
Tasslyn (23:03)
Yeah, exactly, and they needed that. They needed that connection and support and they deserved it. Those are beautiful books. Lovely books. Cool books. We should celebrate them and read them and love them. And they needed to know that they mattered in a moment that was so chaotic and difficult.
Kelly Jensen/Liberating Lit (23:29)
Something I've been thinking about too is just this idea of celebrating the books, right? Because we know that this fight is about the books and it's not about the books, but at the end of the day, the goal is to celebrate books and to champion them and to make sure that they get into the hands of the readers whose lives are going to be touched by them.
Tasslyn (23:52)
Yes. I think that there's nothing that's more important than that.
I often get a lot of questions like, “Do you think it's okay to label a book?” And I'm like, “I want you to really imagine what it's like to be that child that opens that book with the giant rainbow on it that's shelved somewhere else. How do you think they feel? What's it like to be separated?” And people are like, “Well, I didn't mean to separate them.” I'm like, “Well, that's what you're doing. Is that what we want to do? I don't think so.”
I think really helping people think about that reader is another critically important thing I could do through all this work because–really people joke all the time that I am the book fairy. I will give you books, I will send you and mail you books, I will get them signed by authors. I do that because the books matter to me.
Kelly Jensen/Liberating Lit (24:52)
Sort of taking a bit of a turn here. I'm curious, what kind of self care do you practice?
Tasslyn (25:00)
I don't practice any self care. My therapist would tell you that that would be an issue we're working on.
I really am working very hard to realize it's not about counting the book bans. If I miss a book ban, that doesn't change the trajectory. The fight is the fight. I need to be able to show up with my whole heart and self for that fight.
Sometimes that means not counting the last 300 book bans out of whatever state because the whole point is made when you have like thousands of books coming off the shelves. So I'm trying to learn to be more connected.
I also took up woodworking, thanks to my father in law. There's something incredibly satisfying about taking a knife and digging it into wood and then making something. Like it's just great.
Kelly Jensen/Liberating Lit (26:05)
The very first thing you said here, “my therapist would say,” is a form of self-care, right? It may not feel like it many times, but it really is. Taking that time to talk with somebody about what's going on in your life and recognizing that writing down those last few books ultimately doesn't matter–those are forms of self-care, even if it doesn't necessarily feel like self-care. It's learning what boundaries you need to set up around this stuff and recognizing that you cannot do it all. You have to let some of that go, even though you don't want to. I get it.
I want to hold on to everything, too. I want to do everything, but there comes a point where you're like, “I also have to sleep at night.”
Tasslyn (27:08)
Yeah. I have kids. I have a lot of life that is outside book bans. I have things that I have to do and I need to show up for people and be able to show up for myself. And so I have to find balance. I think of all the things therapy has been constant and it's so important. And now my therapist is an expert in book banning in this country.
Kelly Jensen/Liberating Lit (27:36)
An unintentional side benefit, right?
Tasslyn (27:38)
Yes. Like there's no books going to be banned in her school. I've carried the message well.
Kelly Jensen/Liberating Lit (27:46)
So as somebody who writes, how has your advocacy work around book censorship impacted your creativity? Where or how have you kept that creativity alive–if you've been able to keep that creativity alive?
Tasslyn (28:00)
I love when somebody remembers and knows that I'm a writer and asks me about my writing. Like I have been working with Lee Wind, a very good friend of mine, on a project called We Are Stronger Than Censorship. But the very first thing he always asks me–he's like, “You have to talk about this with me, how's your writing?” And it means so much.
I have a critique group that graduated together from Hamline. I love them. They are my rock. They remind me that I am more than book bans and I have a story to tell that is important. I try to drive up to Minneapolis to write together once a week. I'm not great at doing that always, but they're absolutely like “you have stories that you must tell. You have poems that you must write. Where are you doing that? Whatever about the book bans. Like we hear all the time about the book bans. We want to hear you and your voice.”
They mean so much to me.
Kelly Jensen/Liberating Lit (29:12)
What advice or thought would you want to impart on somebody who is just getting into literary advocacy?
Tasslyn (29:23)
There are amazing people that will carry you through the hard parts. Like there are there's a community, there's a connection, there's humor. Those are the things that you're gonna have to treasure because there aren't a lot of good wins.
We're not doing a good job of winning right now. But we're doing a great job of finding each other, building community, and fighting. And I think that's important.
Kelly Jensen/Liberating Lit (29:59)
I agree with you, and I think being honest about that is how we get through this, too. That's, I think, how we are able to form those bonds and that community. I think that's how we build coalitions: being realistic that things are tough, and that it can be hard to see a brighter future. But because you're able to say that and be frank about it, I think it helps strengthen those bonds and strengthens the desire to fight harder and to try new things and to keep going.
Tasslyn (30:44)
Yeah, I think one of the things that many of the communities and the people that I talk to like about me is that I don't tell them bullshit. Like I tell them this is really hard and it's wrong and it's scary and it's awful and you still have to fight because that's what we do.
You asked me earlier about a person or people and I always forget this, but I grew up in Minnesota. I grew up when Paul Wellstone was beginning to be a name and then ran for senator. When he died, I went down to San Francisco to a memorial that was very weird with Nancy Pelosi, but that's a separate story. But there were people from Minnesota who traveled to that because this meant so much.
So Paul Wellstone said “We are better together,” or some version of that quote. I hold that in my heart. Like, we are better when we are doing this together, when we are working together, when we are connecting, when everybody does better, when we do we all do better. I'm butchering his quotes, but you can Google. We all know how to Google.
But Paul Wilson and this idea that we fight, we keep fighting. We all know how to keep up. But Paul will come to this idea that we fight, we keep fighting, and we will continue to fight the personal fight to make it better.
We will continue to fight because that's the purpose: make it better for people.
Kelly Jensen/Liberating Lit (32:19)
I have a feeling your answer to my next question will be similar, but I'm going to ask it anyway. What advice or thoughts would you impart on those who've been doing this work for a long time, who are feeling that burnout, who are feeling that we're not gonna get through this? That feeling of the house is burned down, what do we do now as we stand here? What would you say to them?
Tasslyn (32:49)
So yeah, the house is kind of burned down. It's really scary. There's a lot of stuff that's happened and we can't get it back. So we have to build again. We have to rebuild. Like you have to be focused on going forward.
You know, it's not enough to just suddenly, miraculously have Speak show back up in the thousands of places it's been pulled from. We need to build libraries and schools that treasure and value Speak as an important resource for kids and just a really good story that will help people find themselves. We need to build that kind of community, and we only do that by going through all of this.
So if you're tired, I get it. I get tired, too. You just have to keep doing it. If you need to take a break, take a break and then, you know, brush yourself off. Get back up. We have work to do and it's really, really hard work and we can't do it without you. You need to take whatever break you need and then really get back up.
I'm getting very impatient with some people who are very tired and I'm like, take a break, but come on. We’ve got work to do. There were lots of people in generations before us that worked really hard and didn't see success and still carried on. So we can carry on.
Kelly Jensen/Liberating Lit (34:18)
If you could go back in time, you can travel in a time machine right now and go back to 2021, knowing what you know right now, what might you change in terms of your advocacy, if anything?
Tasslyn (34:34)
I would feel more confident. I would tell myself, like, you actually do know this pretty well. And you're a good advocate. There's a lot of people out there who are just sort of making stuff up, like not fighting, and you're ready to fight. You should just not be afraid to say so.
Kelly Jensen/Liberating Lit (35:00)
I love that answer so much because I'm just thinking about the people that I know who are doing this work across so many different places. I think that that confidence piece is a huge one. So often I think we forget that in these fights we are building the plane as we're flying. We are figuring out what is going on. We're figuring out how we find support in the air.
I'm trying to drag out this flying metaphor and it's not gonna go well. But we're trying to figure out all these pieces because there's so much that we have to navigate along the way, right? We don't know everything. We're never gonna know everything. We can predict a lot, especially this far into it. But when you start, you have no idea.
Tasslyn (35:47)
No, no, you have no idea. I think the other thing I would say is to be aware that there's gonna be a lot of territorial weirdness. Just cut through it. Like this isn't about orgs getting media clicks, etc. This is about a fight about who we are as Americans and who we want to be. It's about not silencing and erasing people. It's about raising voices up. It's not about your media clicks. and I have no patience for that anymore.
Kelly Jensen/Liberating Lit (36:23)
Because this is a podcast about liberating literature, and I mean liberating in all of the senses of the word, I end each conversation the same way: by bringing this back to books. Can you talk about a book that's been influential in your life? And this could be a book that inspires you or a story that's just stuck with you for some reason.
Tasslyn (36:48)
My gosh. This is the hardest question. The hardest question. Okay, so there's a whole bunch of stories, but the ones that jump immediately to mind, of course, is Speak. Because without Speak, I didn't know that I could really have a voice. That taught me that art could be my voice, that things could be my voice.
Then Elana K. Arnold's book Damsel. I don't want to spoil the end. It's so brilliant. But when that dragon flies off, I yelled at the book. I was like, “My God, that's amazing.” And you have to read the book to understand the dragon thing. It's a little bit hard and difficult, but it's worth it because when you get to the end and you realize what happened and how she found herself, you'll appreciate that dragon and you might shout at it, too.
I didn't get to read it yet because I haven't gotten it, but it's by Bao Fei, called Ride and it's a book about who teaches you to ride a bike. And I saw Capstone is the publisher and put together like a little preview with the pages and it made me cry. And I've seen a lot of book previews.
It's a beautiful picture book and Bao Fei is a brilliant poet. But I just saw that and it made me cry and hardly anything makes me cry anymore. It was beautiful.
Kelly Jensen/Liberating Lit (38:29)
Tasslyn, thank you so much for joining me on the show, for sharing so much wisdom and insight, and for entertaining my tough question about books that have been influential in your life. I had this feeling that that would be the toughest question for many of the guests because we care deeply about stories and about what stories bring into our lives and having to choose one or two that you can immediately call up as being so important is hard because so many have left some kind of impact.
Tasslyn (39:02)
Like a brown girl dreaming [by Jacqueline Woodson]. My god. I read that on the floor while my children played and destroyed the art museum's kids center because I couldn't stop reading it. You know, it was so good.
And I wanna thank you for making this space. We need these spaces and it's so important. And you are such a leader and so much fun. And a great partner in all things.
