Have you ever written an author a fan letter?
Did you get an answer?
Did it spark a conversation? A meeting?
I've written to a few authors, but only received three responses. Joseph Epstein, whose collection of essays, The Middle of My Tether, delighted me, sent a typed postcard thanking me for my comments. Laurie Colwin wrote a short note. And Joan Didion, to whom I sent a letter of condolence on the death of her husband, sent a personal note on her lovely blue stationery.
I've met authors, but not through letters, only at book signings: Joyce Carol Oates, Alexandra Stoddard, Dominick Dunne, Alan Dershowitz, Marvin Kitman...
(Have you read Carolyn See's Making a Literary Life? One of the suggestions she makes is to write letters to authors. I really should write one to her.)
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