OK, so in just under two weeks I’ll be an official author, with my book launched. Thus it’s only right that I get to sit back on my newly-minted laurels and pontificate about the authorial life, right?
Actually it’s not a far stretch, because the coolest thing about being an author is the coolest thing about being a bookseller: the people that you meet.
People like Kim Beattie (Goodwill Librarian on FB) Robert Gray (Shelf Awareness columnist) Jennifer and Harte and Sarah (booksellers at Ebenezer Books in VT and Bookstore Plus in NY) to name a few of the new friends in the bookslinging crowd, plus some wacko bibliophiles on Twitter and a whole bunch of authors and about a thousand really lovely people who are READERS.
Readers make the world turn. And they’re interesting souls. A couple of publicity things I did recently netted a whole bunch of people emailing to say hi, and telling me about their library experiences as young’uns: how they had to pay fees because they were out in the county, or how their local library closed because the town grew too small to support it; or their work in various bookstores across the States (and England and Canada, in two cases) and the bookstores that are special to them –one woman is driving back across two states to celebrate the 20th anniversary of a bookstore in her hometown–or how they read real books to their grandchildren in shelf-lined rooms with comfy armchairs.
They are so very, very sweet, these human connections made from books. (And granted, they’re being made on computer, but still it’s just like sitting down with a cup of tea and talking to the people who email; I swear in some cases I picture the person with a mug, in others holding a china cup and saucer, without even thinking about it.)
So maybe that’s the coolest thing about books in general: they always come back to people. That’s the people who wrote them and put their ideas out there for us to enjoy (or shred); the people who gather around them to talk and laugh and discuss; the people who sell them to us and ask us what we thought about them and listen to what the book brought up in us, for better or for worse; and the people who read them, and validate those who write.
Huzzah for book people! You are a great tribe and I’m so happy to be a part of you.
