degrees of separation

Everyone is supposed to be only six degrees separate from any other person in the world. Well, I've never been N degrees close to any writers or authors (except for that one time I got to meet Jill McCorkle at the NYPL), but recently I got a few degrees closer to a writer -- sort of! My sister-in-law Laura, has an ex-boyfriend, Brian, who has a sister, Cristina, who just published her first collection of short stories. Entitled Come Together, Fall Apart, Cristina's debut collection has been reviewed in Booklist and Publishers' Weekly and one of the stories was in The New Yorker last year. Ok, so I'm stretching it a bit -- I've never even met Cristina, but judging by the New Yorker story and the reviews, Ms. Henriquez will be a writer to watch.