I am not a very good blogger. I am a decent writer. But as for blogging, I don’t do it often enough, never publicize it, rarely even mention it to my friends. I’m even a little shy about it. And virtually nobody reads it. (Which is okay. Maybe someday I’ll become a real blogger.) So imagine my surprise when I got an email a few months ago asking for permission to use one of my blog posts in a text book they were working on. It was this one: What Gall!  I said ‘sure,’ thinking to myself that they must be desperate for material. I did ask for a copy of the book when published to stroke my ego just a bit. I never really thought anything would come of it, and forgot all about it.

Then, again out of the blue, a package arrived from Pearson Publishers.  I opened it up, and low, and behold, the book!  Biology: Science for Life by Colleen Belk and Virginia Borden Maier (Fourth Edition). And sure enough in a call out box on page 270 was the post. Every bit of it, and it didn’t sound too bad, either. There were even discussion questions at the back of the book.

So now I’m published. Maybe a few students in some biology class will actually read and discuss my post.  Way cool.