Our Spotlight Author for September 2005
Dear Readers:
I’m absolutely hideous at titles, things to write on birthday cards, and now, Dear Reader letters. I haven’t the slightest thing to say that doesn’t sound self-aggrandizing. Don’t you get annoyed at people who tell you how utterly perfect they are? (On the way to winning my fourth Mrs. Universe title, I declined the Nobel prize, and won the Pulitzer.)
There will be none of that here.
Instead, let’s have a little honesty among us.
Among my attributes, I am blessed with the ability to laugh at myself, and it’s come in handy several thousand times in my life. I am at that age – or perhaps I’m just inured to humiliation – that I no longer worry so much about what other people think, with the exception of one group: readers.
I do care about readers. I care about the woman who wrote me that she used my books as a way to fill the time at the cancer clinic, or the one who told me that I made her believe in love after her divorce. I ache when a reader tells me her mother gave her some of my books and my name is enough to recall her mother’s laugh or smile, or just her memory. I care when people hate a book or wish my heroine had died early instead of going on to a happy ever after ending.
The connection I feel with readers is, in certain ways, even stronger than the bond I have with friends. I think it’s because a reader and I are both involved in this process of Virtual Reality called a book.
My job as a writer is to be a guide, or at least I’ve always thought of writing that way. Picture me holding a lantern up at the entrance to a cave. A reader cautiously peers inside, not entirely certain she wants to be there.
“It’s all right,” I promise. “I’ve been inside. There’s a magical place there, and people you’ll want to know. In fact, there’s a whole world you’ll want to explore.”
“What kind of world?”
“One of my imagination, and hopefully yours.”
The reader nods, understanding, and agrees. With luck, she’ll disappear for hours, returning refreshed, touched, exhilarated, and changed, even the smallest bit, by the experience.
So, dear reader, thank you for your faith in me, for believing that I’ll keep the lantern lit, for adding your own personal details to our joint reality, and most of all for stepping inside my world.
Oh, and please feel free to visit me at www.karenranney.com.
Warmest fuzzies!