June 9, 2011

Authors who email with readers

Ann Rule, Daniel Dennet & Maureen Dowd.
Have you corresponded with an author you admire? The internet makes this so simple. It's not only easy to write to them, it's easy for them to respond.

The three who wrote back to me were Ann Rule, the true crime writer; Daniel Dennett, the totally cosmic philosopher of science; and Maureen Dowd, before she went nuts. My exchanges with all of them were stimulating and fun, and I admired them for taking the time to write back to me in a meaningful way.

I had a very cool conversation with Daniel Dennett about how consciousness works. And Ann Rule and I had a series of funny exchanges that definitely deserve a separate post. (You're gonna love this one.) As for Maureen Dowd, what surprised me was that she shared her fears readily, as if we were old friends. Odd. No diss from me about our correspondence. It was fun. As for what she's writing today, I can't imagine where the poor dear went off. She morphed into some girl from junior high. Maureen, you can do better, hon.

(I'm not counting contacts with bloggers here but that's been great too. Usually if you write a blogger and you're sensible, you get a response. I can't imagine how the high-volume folks find the time (and energy) to do this. Anyway, that's another avenue the internet opened for us. It's so easy to make contact. I love that.)

Have you corresponded with a favorite author? Do tell. What was it like?

2 comments:

Anna Guess Pick said...

Back in the 70's when I was living in West Berlin, I read Winds of War and War and Remembrance. The characters in the books were my first German friends. I wrote Herman Wouk a letter about this experience and he wrote back a very touching reply. I still have that letter. He mentioned that authors didn't hear that often from their readers (at least at that time)and how much he appreciated getting the letter.

I have emailed one author and received a nice reply. I suppose super productive authors like Grisham have 'people' to handle the emails for them or they would never find time to write the books.

writenow said...

That's so cool. I adored Herman Wouk. Youngblood Hawke was an anthem, just wonderful. I see he just put out a god book! I'll bet it's not that awful.