KM Peyton is my one of my literary heroes. (The others, fyi, are Michelle Magorian, Patricia Leitch, Elinor M. Brent-Dyer and Frank Cottrell Boyce. But it’s not their birhtday today, and it is KM Peyton’s so I shall save them for another time.)
Happy birthday KM Peyton! She’s a bit amazing she is. More than a bit amazing, she’s outstanding. (coughMBEHERALREADYcough) I’ve spoken before about how much I love her, about how she catches the pure soul-consuming nature of first love, or the way she handles the delicate painful shift of growing up, or how she catches that sudden realisation that you’ve got into situation that is over your head or how she says in such few words everything that ever needs to be said. (KM Peyton archive here. She good, yo.)
So this, really, is to say thank you KM Peyton.
Thank you for Ruth, brave stubborn and brilliant Ruth. Thank you for Sweetbriar, my first equine crush. Thank you for Pennington who wrote an entire section of my MA thesis all by himself. For Dick, gorgeous, wondrous Dick. For the sprawling, luscious and heartbreaking layers of Flambards. For everything, really.
Thanks.
I owe you.
Daisy May Johnson 