Attention political strategists: don’t forget to court the Young Adult (YA) writing community. Author Maureen Johnson started the social networking site YA for Obama after she realized many of her friends from the YA community supported the senator, and thought (in true YA fashion), "Wouldn’t it be great if we all had a place where we could write about Obama? And if we invited everyone to join?" Judy Blume, author of Superfudge, Tiger Eyes and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing among many others (raise your hand if you learned about sex from reading Forever), is the first author to contribute. Ms. Blume, who says she’s never before talked about her politics publicly, writes that she was inspired to speak up “because at last we have a candidate who makes me believe again. A candidate who I see as America’s best hope, a candidate who inspires not just my grandson’s generation, but my own, and my children’s.”

Check back for further installments from John Green, Scott Westerfeld and Princess Diaries author Meg Cabot.

DAY

Mr. Donvan, who had been out of town, meant it as a factual question to get himself up to speed. He was referring to John Green, the executive producer of the weekend version of Good Morning America. On March 31, Mr. Green was suspended for a month without pay, after a pair of old e-mails he’d written—bluntly disparaging George W. Bush and Madeleine Albright—were leaked to the Drudge Report and the New York Post.

Sources inside and outside the network have privately expressed doubts about Mr. Green’s ability to survive this suspension. “When people leave for a month,” said one ABC source, “they don’t always come back.”

“That’s nonsense,” said an ABC executive. “We’re looking forward to John’s return. He’s a great producer, and we’re looking forward to putting this behind us.”

“What we can learn from this,” executive producer James Goldston told Mr. Donvan, “is: Watch what you write in your e-mails.”

Another lesson: Don’t use your work account to say that the President “makes me sick” or the former Secretary of State has “Jew shame.”

But mainly, as Mr. Green’s colleagues rifle through their own outboxes to see what job-endangering phrases they might have tossed off, the lesson at ABC is: Watch whom you write your e-mails to.

There would have been no scandal, after all, if one of the recipients of Mr. Green’s back-channel e-mails hadn’t allowed the messages to go public.

Television news divisions have always been tough on leakers. Two ABC sources said that an internal investigation into the leak is believed to be ongoing, though a network spokesperson declined to comment on how hotly executives may be pursuing it.

Early suspicions focused on what a number of blogs and The Washington Post called a “disgruntled former employee” of weekend Good Morning America—a man who had a well-known beef with Mr. Green and who was dismissed two weeks before the e-mails surfaced.

Contacted by telephone, that man—though he was indeed disgruntled—vehemently denied any part in the leaking.

He said he’d received a phone call at 4:10 a.m. the day after the Drudge leak, at the house that he shares with his mother. By his account, the voice on the other end said only “We know you’ve been talking to Matt Drudge—you’re the source,” and then hung up. The former employee said he has asked Verizon to trace the call and is now going through “legal maneuvers” to acquire the number.

In the weeks that followed, the man’s name has flown around television and other journalism circles without actually being printed anywhere. The man said he received a letter on April 7 from ABC’s legal department, reminding him of the network’s privacy policy and asking him to return confidential e-mails, audiotapes and other documents.

NIGHT

Almost exactly one month ago, ABC News president David Westin took Charlie Gibson to lunch to discuss the Good Morning America anchor’s much-anticipated move to World News Tonight.

At the meal, according to three sources close to Mr. Gibson, Mr. Westin explained his unenviable position: He was committed to the newly unveiled and presently unsustainable two-anchor format, he said, because he believed it would work. Because he believed that she is talented (and because it’s in her contract), he wanted Elizabeth Vargas to continue as one of those two anchors. And that’s where good ol’ Charlie came in. Mr. Gibson, if he could find it in his heart to take half the desk he once came so close to having all to himself, would be the other—that is, until Bob Woodruff, the chair’s rightful occupant, had recovered enough from his Iraq wounds to return.

It wasn’t exactly $50 million and a place in history, but Mr. Gibson expressed interest. In a follow-up conversation that week, according to the sources, Mr. Westin implied that a draft of a new contract would land on Mr. Gibson’s desk any minute. Executives had discussions about how to break the news. Gossip columns held forth on the 63-year-old company man’s impending and well-earned ascent. NYTV reported that Diane Sawyer was lobbying for Mr. Gibson.

And then, once the buzz had reached a fever pitch … nothing.

Minutes—then hours, then days—came and went, and no contract landed anywhere. Mr. Westin left for a vacation. Major announcements came from CBS and NBC. Katie Couric became anchor of the CBS Evening News. A day later, The View’s Meredith Vieira took her spot on Today. All the while, ABC was mum.

“It seemed like we were on the cusp of something,” said one World News Tonight producer, “and then it all just ground to a halt.”

But within the news division, things were still moving, albeit slowly, and mostly in the opposite direction. While their competitors drafted exultant press releases about their various talent coups, ABC spent a week managing the very public Green mini-scandal and then went back to staring at its anchor-chair Rubik’s Cube. Mr. Westin has spent his time issuing periodic updates on Mr. Woodruff’s recovery, including four encouraging photographs of the anchor, injured in January in Iraq, that were released last Friday on the network Web site. But the Woodruff family has kept ABC executives at a distance, according to three sources, allowing only a select few to visit or speak with Mr. Woodruff, who is now recuperating at a private facility and at his New York home.

In an e-mail on March 16, his most recent missive on the situation, Mr. Westin wrote to the news division: “Elizabeth and the WNT team will continue to hold down the fort while Bob makes his recovery. We laid out ambitious plans for the broadcast earlier in the year, and we are working on ways to move that plan forward during this interim period. Having the best team in the business, I’m thankful we can take the time we need to do what’s best for WNT.”

Among those growing impatient with the lack of at least a permanent temporary solution to the World News Tonight quandary are the general managers of many ABC affiliates around the country. A powerful collective whose happiness the network seeks to maintain at virtually any cost, the managers will be meeting in New York on May 16 and 17, coinciding with the network’s “upfront” presentation. Generally pacified by ABC’s strong prime-time line-up, some have started to bristle at the news division’s delays, although World News ratings have stayed fairly steady. For the week of April 3, the latest for which ratings are available, ABC’s evening newscast came in second overall but first in the 25-54 demographic.

“I’d like for them to be able to tell me that, barring changes by God or whatever, this is our plan for ABC News going forward,” said Dale Nicholson, the general manager of KATV in Little Rock. “I think it’d be nice of them to do that.”

Mr. Nicholson, who has worked for 44 years at his local ABC station and is a former member of the ABC affiliate board, said he maintains his ratings, even as the national newscast struggles, by preempting news programming with local sports. Many of his fellow G.M.’s, he said, are not so fortunate.

“If you’re a weaker station and you lose a Peter Jennings, and they can’t settle on who to replace him with, then you’re in trouble,” he said. “But I’ve got Oprah leading into my 5 o’clock local news, and I’ve gotta tell ya, nobody’s gonna beat Miss Oprah right now.”

LATE NIGHT

The one show Mr. Nicholson often shuffles out of its time slot, because of a special arrangement with the network, is Nightline. “I don’t care for it,” he said. “I play an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond instead.”

Actually, Nightline is the only ABC News broadcast that exceeds expectations these days, drawing about 3.5 million viewers a night. Ratings are up over Ted Koppel’s a year ago, overall and in the 25-to-54 demographic, which is up a whopping 9 percent. Last week, the 11:35 p.m. news program came breathtakingly close to beating The Late Show with David Letterman on CBS. Evidently, there’s some form of television news young people are interested in.

According to two network sources, this exhaustingly paced live broadcast, which seemed on the verge of cancellation last spring when Mr. Koppel announced that he was leaving the network, has consequently received a small boost to its budget.

DAY

Mr. Donvan, who had been out of town, meant it as a factual question to get himself up to speed. He was referring to John Green, the executive producer of the weekend version of Good Morning America. On March 31, Mr. Green was suspended for a month without pay, after a pair of old e-mails he’d written—bluntly disparaging George W. Bush and Madeleine Albright—were leaked to the Drudge Report and the New York Post.

Sources inside and outside the network have privately expressed doubts about Mr. Green’s ability to survive this suspension. “When people leave for a month,” said one ABC source, “they don’t always come back.”

“That’s nonsense,” said an ABC executive. “We’re looking forward to John’s return. He’s a great producer, and we’re looking forward to putting this behind us.”

“What we can learn from this,” executive producer James Goldston told Mr. Donvan, “is: Watch what you write in your e-mails.”

Another lesson: Don’t use your work account to say that the President “makes me sick” or the former Secretary of State has “Jew shame.”

But mainly, as Mr. Green’s colleagues rifle through their own outboxes to see what job-endangering phrases they might have tossed off, the lesson at ABC is: Watch whom you write your e-mails to.

There would have been no scandal, after all, if one of the recipients of Mr. Green’s back-channel e-mails hadn’t allowed the messages to go public.

Television news divisions have always been tough on leakers. Two ABC sources said that an internal investigation into the leak is believed to be ongoing, though a network spokesperson declined to comment on how hotly executives may be pursuing it.

Early suspicions focused on what a number of blogs and The Washington Post called a “disgruntled former employee” of weekend Good Morning America—a man who had a well-known beef with Mr. Green and who was dismissed two weeks before the e-mails surfaced.

Contacted by telephone, that man—though he was indeed disgruntled—vehemently denied any part in the leaking.

He said he’d received a phone call at 4:10 a.m. the day after the Drudge leak, at the house that he shares with his mother. By his account, the voice on the other end said only “We know you’ve been talking to Matt Drudge—you’re the source,” and then hung up. The former employee said he has asked Verizon to trace the call and is now going through “legal maneuvers” to acquire the number.

In the weeks that followed, the man’s name has flown around television and other journalism circles without actually being printed anywhere. The man said he received a letter on April 7 from ABC’s legal department, reminding him of the network’s privacy policy and asking him to return confidential e-mails, audiotapes and other documents.

NIGHT

Almost exactly one month ago, ABC News president David Westin took Charlie Gibson to lunch to discuss the Good Morning America anchor’s much-anticipated move to World News Tonight.

At the meal, according to three sources close to Mr. Gibson, Mr. Westin explained his unenviable position: He was committed to the newly unveiled and presently unsustainable two-anchor format, he said, because he believed it would work. Because he believed that she is talented (and because it’s in her contract), he wanted Elizabeth Vargas to continue as one of those two anchors. And that’s where good ol’ Charlie came in. Mr. Gibson, if he could find it in his heart to take half the desk he once came so close to having all to himself, would be the other—that is, until Bob Woodruff, the chair’s rightful occupant, had recovered enough from his Iraq wounds to return.

It wasn’t exactly $50 million and a place in history, but Mr. Gibson expressed interest. In a follow-up conversation that week, according to the sources, Mr. Westin implied that a draft of a new contract would land on Mr. Gibson’s desk any minute. Executives had discussions about how to break the news. Gossip columns held forth on the 63-year-old company man’s impending and well-earned ascent. NYTV reported that Diane Sawyer was lobbying for Mr. Gibson.

And then, once the buzz had reached a fever pitch … nothing.

Minutes—then hours, then days—came and went, and no contract landed anywhere. Mr. Westin left for a vacation. Major announcements came from CBS and NBC. Katie Couric became anchor of the CBS Evening News. A day later, The View’s Meredith Vieira took her spot on Today. All the while, ABC was mum.

“It seemed like we were on the cusp of something,” said one World News Tonight producer, “and then it all just ground to a halt.”

But within the news division, things were still moving, albeit slowly, and mostly in the opposite direction. While their competitors drafted exultant press releases about their various talent coups, ABC spent a week managing the very public Green mini-scandal and then went back to staring at its anchor-chair Rubik’s Cube. Mr. Westin has spent his time issuing periodic updates on Mr. Woodruff’s recovery, including four encouraging photographs of the anchor, injured in January in Iraq, that were released last Friday on the network Web site. But the Woodruff family has kept ABC executives at a distance, according to three sources, allowing only a select few to visit or speak with Mr. Woodruff, who is now recuperating at a private facility and at his New York home.

In an e-mail on March 16, his most recent missive on the situation, Mr. Westin wrote to the news division: “Elizabeth and the WNT team will continue to hold down the fort while Bob makes his recovery. We laid out ambitious plans for the broadcast earlier in the year, and we are working on ways to move that plan forward during this interim period. Having the best team in the business, I’m thankful we can take the time we need to do what’s best for WNT.”

Among those growing impatient with the lack of at least a permanent temporary solution to the World News Tonight quandary are the general managers of many ABC affiliates around the country. A powerful collective whose happiness the network seeks to maintain at virtually any cost, the managers will be meeting in New York on May 16 and 17, coinciding with the network’s “upfront” presentation. Generally pacified by ABC’s strong prime-time line-up, some have started to bristle at the news division’s delays, although World News ratings have stayed fairly steady. For the week of April 3, the latest for which ratings are available, ABC’s evening newscast came in second overall but first in the 25-54 demographic.

“I’d like for them to be able to tell me that, barring changes by God or whatever, this is our plan for ABC News going forward,” said Dale Nicholson, the general manager of KATV in Little Rock. “I think it’d be nice of them to do that.”

Mr. Nicholson, who has worked for 44 years at his local ABC station and is a former member of the ABC affiliate board, said he maintains his ratings, even as the national newscast struggles, by preempting news programming with local sports. Many of his fellow G.M.’s, he said, are not so fortunate.

“If you’re a weaker station and you lose a Peter Jennings, and they can’t settle on who to replace him with, then you’re in trouble,” he said. “But I’ve got Oprah leading into my 5 o’clock local news, and I’ve gotta tell ya, nobody’s gonna beat Miss Oprah right now.”

LATE NIGHT

The one show Mr. Nicholson often shuffles out of its time slot, because of a special arrangement with the network, is Nightline. “I don’t care for it,” he said. “I play an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond instead.”

Actually, Nightline is the only ABC News broadcast that exceeds expectations these days, drawing about 3.5 million viewers a night. Ratings are up over Ted Koppel’s a year ago, overall and in the 25-to-54 demographic, which is up a whopping 9 percent. Last week, the 11:35 p.m. news program came breathtakingly close to beating The Late Show with David Letterman on CBS. Evidently, there’s some form of television news young people are interested in.

According to two network sources, this exhaustingly paced live broadcast, which seemed on the verge of cancellation last spring when Mr. Koppel announced that he was leaving the network, has consequently received a small boost to its budget.

In one e-mail, sent during a presidential debate on Sept. 30, 2004, Green wrote, "Are you watching this? Bush makes me sick. If he uses the 'mixed messages' line one more time, I'm going to puke." That message appeared on the Drudge Report on March 23. Green e-mailed his staff the day it was posted to apologize. In his mea culpa, which was also posted on Drudge, Green wrote "I want all of you to know how much I regret the embarrassment this story causes ABC. It was an inappropriate thing to say and I'm deeply sorry."

On March 30, The New York Post's "Page Six" quoted from another Green e-mail, this one about former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. In that note, for which no date was given, Green argued that Albright should not be booked on GMA because she has "Jew shame," the Post reported.

Weekend GMA staffers were told of Green's suspension today.

An ABC spokesman declined to comment, saying the network does not discuss personnel matters.

--Rebecca Dana

Met: September 1993

Engaged: April 22, 2005

Projected Wedding Date: May 20, 2006

John Green, a published author at 28 (grrrr), is marrying Sarah Urist, 26, a candidate for a master’s in art history at Columbia. Mr. Green’s coming-of-age novel, Looking for Alaska, was published by Dutton last spring and is being turned into a screenplay by The O.C.’s Josh Schwartz, who will also direct the project.

Just call the couple the Marissa and Ryan of Indian Springs, Ala., where they met at prep school. “I knew him as a character,” said the bouncy, brunette Ms. Urist, remembering a skinny blond kid who reeked of cigarettes and tried a bit too hard to be cool. “Everybody knew who John Green was.”

“I only remember that you were the hot ninth grader,” Mr. Green said.

“Ewww, gross!” she complained.

They re-encountered one another eight years later, having both uprooted to Chicago; he was dating her boxing partner, who fortuitously was about to move to Italy. The three met in the Windy City’s lone bagel café, the Bagel. “I thought you were gorgeous,” Mr. Green said, addressing his fiancée. “Hotter, dare I say it, than in the ninth grade.” He was also impressed by her grammar and punctuation skills. “If she said ‘Civil War–era,’ you could almost hear the N-dash between ‘war’ and ‘era,’” he said.

Ms. Urist liked him but worried that he was a bit too skinny. “I’d been malnourished,” Mr. Green said. Still, they struck up a cyber-correspondence. “Through her e-mails, you just got this portrait of this searingly intelligent woman,” he said, “and I was just incredibly frustrated that I couldn’t make it happen.”

In desperation, he asked her to take his author photo, showing up well-groomed at her apartment for an amateur shoot. While Ms. Urist was preoccupied with the camera, he turned the conversation to the guy he thought she was dating. “Oh, I broke up with him three months ago!” she said.

“Does that mean I can pursue you now?” Mr. Green asked. She nodded and smiled. Smooch time!

They began spending more and more time together, as Ms. Urist anxiously awaited graduate-school acceptances. One evening, Mr. Green pasted a note to her mailbox reading “Don’t check your mail!” and placed a rose on each step of the four flights of stairs leading to her apartment. A sign clarified: “If you’re not Sarah, these flowers obviously aren’t for you.”

Alas, his elaborate plans were upstaged when Ms. Urist got her Columbia acceptance from FedEx before coming home. “My news was trumped,” Mr. Green said.

But when Ms. Urist saw the flowers, she sensed something special was up. “John Green! You dirty trickster!” she yelled. Her boyfriend was waiting at the top of the landing, bearing a ring the couple had chosen together from Stanton Harris Inc. jewelers: three adjacent emerald-cut diamonds, totaling just over a carat, set in platinum.

“I thought, because John’s a writer, there would be some kind of speech prepared,” Ms. Urist said, but Mr. Green just blurted out: “I love you so much … will you marry me?”

They will wed at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Ms. Urist’s hometown of Birmingham, with a reception to follow at the local art museum featuring country music, crawfish cakes and fried green tomatoes (bring Pepto!). “We decided to embrace the Southern theme,” said the bride-to-be.

It’s a world apart from the Upper West Side neighborhood where they’ve found a charming beginner’s-luck one-bedroom in a brownstone. “I think people just get completely accustomed to it,” Mr. Green said, “but every 10 or 15 steps you get a clear whiff of pee.”

Michelle Sidi and Brian Stevens

Met: June 1996

Engaged: Sept. 23, 2005

Projected Wedding Date: October 2006

Little darlings! Michelle Sidi and Brian Stevens met during the tender teenage years, working as counselors for the J.C.C. camp near their hometown of Plainview, Long Island. They would talk on the phone every night, but “she wasn’t interested in me,” said Mr. Stevens, now 25 and an account executive for Avenue-e Health Strategies, a pharmaceutical advertising company. “She was interested in Fireman Steve.”

After her crush abated, he asked her to the junior prom, kissing her on the bus to the post-party, a Circle Line cruise. Voilà—they were an item.

But graduation put something of a damper on the relationship. He matriculated at SUNY Albany, while she went to SUNY Binghamton, where she grew tired of waiting for the phone to ring. “He was a typical guy—would hang out with his friends, never call me back—and I was a typical girl,” said the coiffed, brunette Ms. Sidi, also 25 and currently studying speech pathology at Hofstra. “One day I said, ‘Enough’s enough!’”

“I had a lot of growing to do,” said the shaven-headed, broadly built Mr. Stevens. “I had a lot to learn about how to treat people.”

When he found out his 19-year-old little sister was dating his best friend, he phoned his ex for consolation.

“I was like, ‘Why is he calling me about this?’” said Ms. Sidi, who’d remained friends with the sis.

Switching gears, Mr. Stevens invited her on a free trip for two to Orlando, Fla. (actually a promotion for a timeshared condo), which she interpreted as a “friendly” gesture. “How are we going to sleep in the same bed for five days as friends?” he asked. “It’s going to be awkward.”

“I don’t care—I’ll sleep on the floor,” Ms. Sidi said, “I really need a vacation.”

Needless to say, nobody slept on the floor.

Ms. Sidi was grateful to have Mr. Stevens back in her life when her beloved maternal grandmother got cancer the following year. “He would go with me so I didn’t have to go alone—gives up his weekend to sit in this depressing nursing home so I could sit with my grandma and be there with my family,” Ms. Sidi said. “That meant everything to me.”

One night, he lured her to the city with dinner reservations at Pesce Pasta, a sleeper Italian restaurant on the Upper West Side. Meeting her at Penn Station, Mr. Stevens told Ms. Sidi that he wanted to stop in a nearby Kay Jewelers to fix his gold chain. “Do we have to?” she whined obliviously.

“It’ll only take a minute,” he said. When they entered the store, “the doorman who opened the door was smiling at me so much I thought he was hitting on me,” said Ms. Sidi, who wandered, inevitably, over to the engagement-ring counter. “Oh!” twittered the staff. “Are you getting engaged?”

“You’ll have to ask him,” Ms. Sidi said. Feeling a tap on her shoulder, she turned to find Mr. Stevens down on one knee, holding up an open box containing a one-carat princess-cut diamond, surrounded by smaller, channel-set quarter-carat stones. “How do you like this one?” he asked.

“Are you kidding me?!” she yelped, hitting him Elaine Benes–style.

Later on, at the restaurant, she was greeted by a congratulatory banner and a crowd of their family and friends. At the end of the night, a limo took the Long Island lovebirds to a suite sprinkled with rose petals at the East Norwich Inn. “I was so shocked, my cheeks hurt,” Ms. Sidi said.

The couple is preparing to move from their respective parents’ homes to a condo that they’ve bought in Westbury, Long Island.