It used to be that if you wanted to interact with an author, your only option was to write a letter and send it to the author in care of their publisher. I did this once. Back on New Year’s Day in 1995 I was working in a bookstore. That morning I’d finished reading a brand-new YA novel called Wish You Were Here by Barbara Shoup. My response to the book was so personal and so large that I felt compelled to write the author. A couple of hours later in the staff lunch room, I scrawled out a handwritten letter on the pages of a tiny white notepad. My writing was messy, hard to read, heartfelt, and spontaneous, but I sent the letter off to Hyperion Books in New York anyway, wondering if it would ever get to Barb.
Three months later I got a two-page typed letter in response, my first ever letter from an author. Barb’s handwriting on the envelope was a thing of wonder to me, and my heartbeat raced as I opened it. I poured over her words and carried her letter with me for days. What began as a shot in the dark—my spontaneous reader response—led to an ongoing correspondence and friendship. Barb’s book will always hold an important place in my life because of the personal connection we forged through letters.
Now in the era of the internet, YA authors are everywhere. We can read their blogs, watch their online videos, find archived interviews they’ve given, locate their email addresses, friend them on Facebook, and even chat with them on Skype or online. This access may help some readers to feel even closer ties to the books they love and the authors who write them. It may help more readers to forge personal connections with authors in the way I did with Barb Shoup. On the other hand, it may feel strange to encounter a favorite author outside the confines of the book they wrote, kind of like running into your teacher wearing sweatpants in the grocery store. What’s it like for you to have access to the authors you’re reading, and to get a sense of who they are as people when you find them online?
Jennifer Buehler
I did a writing workshop with Barbara Shoup during my junior year at the University of Evansville! She was a delight to work with, and that book is on my list of things to read.
ReplyDeleteSusan Elliott