Our own editorial assistant Elyse Notarianni is officially a published author – and we don’t just mean in SJ Mag. Elyse is a contributing author to Channel Kindness: Stories of Kindness and Community, a book of essays published by Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation.

On her very first day at SJ Magazine, Elyse got a call that her story on reducing food waste with Hungry Harvest, a company that sells recovered fruits and vegetables (think the produce that’s too “ugly” to sell in the grocery store, but otherwise perfectly fine), would be featured as a chapter in the book. She wrote the story for Channel Kindness, a platform created by Lady Gaga’s foundation for young journalists to report on positive stories in their community. Elyse teamed up with the foundation in 2016, after seeing Lady Gaga’s mother and foundation president Cynthia Germanotta speak at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce conference, where Elyse was working at the time.

“I wasn’t able to talk about it for almost a year after I found out, and I’m the worst secret-keeper so all I wanted to do was tell everyone I knew that Lady Gaga likes my writing,” says Elyse, who was among the first class of reporters for the platform. “So now that it’s out, in case anyone is wondering…Lady Gaga likes my writing!”

The book was realeased on September 22 and is available at bookstores, Target and Amazon.