Intergenerational angst, misunderstanding and mistrust. Where was it created? How was it created? Why was it created? Perhaps it came as fiction posing as fact. Perhaps it came as myth posing as reality. Perhaps it was an attempt to maintain hero status in the eyes of the impressionable when you felt you were really the anti-hero, beyond the point of being worshipped as hero/heroine. The novels by IC Blackman are fictional, but the themes they explore are neither mythological nor fictional. The themes are very real; someone’s reality on the bus next to you, in your classroom, on the train, in the corner store, at your own table. The characters are imperfect, complex, multilayered, and as multifaceted as those that read about them. They are channels of communication. You possess the characters with your identity, manipulate them with your mind. You utilize them. That’s why they’re there. That’s why they came; they may or may not possess you at your bidding. It’s a start. Open the book, and open your mind; open your heart; open up dialogue with Connected Fiction. It won’t be easy. Building a bridge with words is never easy. Footnotes become footsteps bridging the disconnect, foot soldiers of a battle that need not be fought. You’re about to use fictional words to inform and form your own with your teen. You’re about to use real and timely themes to explore your unique reality based on broader ones expressed by one writer in tinkered ink. It’s why I write. It’s why I’ll continue to write. I wish you every success beyond the last page.