I find that it’s best to think of Twitter as a big cocktail party. People are milling around in groups usually based on their interests, political leanings, and sometimes based on whatever they’re trying to sell. They’re usually putting their best face forward, though occasionally some of them imbibe too much and/or put their feet in their mouths.

Then you, the writer, walk in. Your dress shoes are already pinching or rubbing your heels. You try to unobtrusively smooth down the slightly rumpled dress or sport coat that you fished out of the back of your closet when you heard that this was a party you just couldn't miss. You grab a drink from a passing waiter and look around for some friendly faces.

As a girl, I spent large chunks of my summer at my grandparents' houses in small towns in North Carolina. Wearing flip flops (if any shoes at all) and playing with my brother and cousins outside among the pine needles and cat tails and sandy soil. We weren't that different in those summers from the Finch kids. And when I read To Kill a Mockingbird as a teenager, I felt like it was written just for me; a book about a Southern girl barefoot and curious, starting to navigate the more complicated aspects of life.