Authors who write letters...

[fajrdrako]

Lois McMaster Bujold posted an interesting link to a form letter written by Robert Heinlein to answer letters from fans. The letter itself is entertianing enough, but I was interested in this comment by the person who put up the letter:

While getting a form letter back might be thought rude, it was much better than being ignored, and besides, the other questions you did not ask were also answered! Indeed, it is both remarkable and heartwarming that Heinlein replied at all to most mail. Can you imagine other great authors doing the same -- even with a form letter?

To which my rather-too-easy answer is 'yes'. Dunnett fans have long been amazed and impressed by the prompt, courteous, hand-written notes with which she replied to every piece of fan mail she received. This sometimes this blossomed into full and enduring correspondence, especially in the early years.

I have not written to as many authors as I think I should, but when I have, I have always received responses - and I sometimes ended up with a new friend because of it.

Don't most authors reply to fan mail? Have people here had experience with authors who didn't? who were they? I can understand writers being too busy to correspond, but my actual experience has been that they love getting fan mail and often feel moved to respond.

Perhaps Heinlein's reponse would have been different if the letters were from kids asking me to do their homework. But even that - it seems to me that interviewing a writer is not necessarily a bad way to approach an assignment.

Comments

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I don't know if "most" do - most I've ever written to do - but in these more accessible times, it's easier to find if an author has somewhere you can write TO - rather than once upon a time the only address one had was the publisher.

There are however authors who think they are above it - look at Robin Hobb's webpage for a classic example of that.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I never had a problem with writing c/o the publisher - they were usually quick at passing things on, too.

I went and looked at Robin Hobb's web page. I see what you mean - no 'contact' whatsoever - and her Megan Lindholm page is similarly uninviting. Reclusive? Or she had bad experiences? or - ?

Well, I'm unlikely to want to write to her anyway (since I didn't like the only Robin Hobb novel I read), but if I wanted to, I suppose I'd just write c/o the pubisher again.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

C/o publishers is the route I've generally taken.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, me too. I don't think I've ever written to an author by e-mail.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

You've never replied to Lois on the list???

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, of course - but I've never sent her private e-mail.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I wrote to Gr*h*m Sh*lby, trying as gently as I could to ask why he had done what he did to Conrad, and got a reply saying that a) he couldn't recall what he'd written 35 years before, but b) he had thought it justifiable at the time, and c) it was just like different artists painting portraits of the same person, which will all look different. (I could have replied that what he did was paint an entirely different character, a Gothic novel villain, and just stick the name of a real person on it!)

I've had a better experience with historians, and indeed with actors. Peter writes very nicely to fans.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Poor Graham Shelby couldn't make a good case for the defense because in his case there was no case to make!

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Yup. Gratuitous character-abuse in the name of cheap sex-'n'-violence sensationalism.

[j-bluestocking.livejournal.com]

Some authors no doubt get much more fan mail than others; some may have more time/exhaustion issues than others, for reasons that are their own. Heck, I can't even always keep up with my LJ comments, but I don't think I'm "above" them.

Today, for instance, I'm recovering from flu, dead-tired mentally and physically, way behind at work (to the point of approaching crisis), and I've got two pieces of e-mail from old friends that popped up unexpectedly. I'm very glad to hear from them, truly, and yet, right now, the very idea of trying to write back in the way their letters deserve is a burden. Practically everything I need to do today feels like a burden. Nor is it easy for me to be a multi-tasker at the best of times. Things like this seem to happen every day, and some tasks I would like to do fall off into the abyss as the rush of new obligations thunders in.

I don't know. I admire people who seem to be able to do it all, but I can't seem to drag myself along sufficiently to match them. If I know I'm only good for two hours of work today, should I spend that time working, or devote half of it to correspondence? I don't know why it seems so doable for others, but it's not easy at all for me.

As for writers/actors/artists who are incredibly popular... I remember, years ago, leaving an office in New York with a friend for lunch. Woody Allen was shooting a movie in Bowling Green. My friend Bill noted that they'd broken for lunch and that Allen, looking tired and distracted, was quickly heading off somewhere. "I'm going to go over to him and tell him how much I like his movies," Bill said. I said, "The man is tired, he's been dealing with directing stuff all morning -- give him his space." "What are you talking about? I think he'd like to know somebody enjoys his movies." "I think he knows that already. I really do." Honestly, I wanted to tackle my friend. I couldn't believe how dense he was being.

None of which means, of course, that authors don't reply to correspondence. I just mean... god, I don't know; our expectations of our fellow humans horrify me a little sometimes. I sure know I can't meet them.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I can certianly understand a person not being able to answer all letters, especially when they're getting piles of them from strangers. It's just been my experience that while all sorts of people might fail to write back (for good reasons or bad), the writers I've written to have invariably replied to me, and most have done so very quickly.

How many people am I talking about here? Not a lot. A dozen at most.

Goodness knows I have trouble keeping up with my LJ comments and e-mail, let alone written letters, which have mostly fallen by the wayside, more's the pity.

Another thought (which I didn't articulate above and maybe should have)is that I have never written to an author expecting a reply. I write to them becuase I have something to say, probably a variation of "I love your work", though I try to make the letter interesting beyond that. I don't do it for a response, because the only sensible resonse anyway is just 'good', but I write just so they'll know.

I wouldn't approach a celebrity in public anyway. Even if I wanted to, it's an intrusion, and I'm very shy.

[elebridith]

Hm... somehow I almost never wrote to authors... and I'm just asking myself why.
But I e-mailed Steve Hamilton once (Michigan crime novel author) when I discovered his website. The german translations of his books had stopped for some reason and I looked to see what I had been missing, and there was a contact site which said that Steve answers every mail. So I tried - and got an answer within a *day*. I was really really surprised, and it was a very nice mail.
And another very nice guy is Kevin J. Anderson. I still have yet to read one of his original works, but I am quite fond of him because he gave Star Wars fans one of the first Expanded Universe trilogys waaaay before Episode One to Three were even planned. And he finished "Dune" together with Brian Herbert. He may not be the "best" writer in the world, but I like him, so I signed up for his MySpace site. I got a message where he asked if I wanted to get his newsletter via snail mail. I answered that it might not make sense since I am in Germany, and he replied that a Germany appearance is not totally out of the question and that he'd love to sign me up nevertheless. I already got two issues. Now I think *that* is nice. And of course makes me want to read more of his work... *g*

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Love your icon! It's the story of my life.

I take it I should read Steve Hamilton's books? I don't think I ever heard of him before. I see my library has a whole bunch of his novels. Good!

Kevin J. Anderson sounds like a nice person. I read one of his books long ago, I think.

[elebridith]

I love Steve Hamilton! I you like crime novels - he's got a series with main character Alex McKnight, ex-cop with issues. A little dark and gritty, but not too much. Make sure that you read them in order - "Cold day in Paradise" is the first. They are not exactly sequels (every book is a separate case), but the story of the sidekicks and the recurring characters is easier to follow then. I have a link to his website on my linklist.

Kevin is really nice. I'm in the middle of the last Dune-book and I saw he has a Krypton-story which sounds exciting. His writing style is easy to read, which I can really appreciate since the Dune world is complicated enough... *g* I could hardly make my way through "God-Emperor" in german... *sigh*

Icon is from pink_cosmos!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I've ordered Cold Day in Paradise from the library.

[iibnf.livejournal.com]

I wrote a fan letter to a writer once, (non-fiction, it was a book on, um, something scientific. Possibly Latin? I forget) and he sent back such a smart, funny note, all full of questions and delight, that I was totally intimidated and never responded.

He also wrote in pencil.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I was totally intimidated and never responded.

LOL! At least you didn't further distract him from his work.

I wonder if he did all his work and all his writing in pencil.

[puritybrown.livejournal.com]

C. S. Lewis responded to all his letters personally as well. Andrew Rilstone comments on this tendency here (http://andrewrilstone.blogspot.com/2007/03/collected-letters-of-cs-lewis-volume-3.html): in brief, Rilstone suggests that while the time Lewis took to answer all those letters (some of them very trivial, some excessively personal) certainly cut into the time he could have spent writing, the reading and responding to the letters may well have been an education in human nature that he couldn't have got any other way.

I was 16 when I first wrote to an author -- Iain M. Banks. I wrote to him after I'd read Use of Weapons and been so blown away by it that I had to tell him. I got a very courteous and pleased response, which I have kept.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Every writer has his or her way of dealing with writing, and it seems to me that in some cases, writing letters is a sort of way of letting of steam which doesn't take away from the work - not even in terms of time, because no one can work on one thing every waking moment - but which practises skills of written expression without the pressure of work. In other words, a sort of busman's holiday.

Or it could be procrastination, of course.

Ian M. Banks! I just started reading one of his books. (I've never read him before.) How very cool.

Somewhat Off-Topic

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Yesterday at work, I ran across a Gaither Ministries magazine. They do Gaither Homecoming, a television program. I don't interact well with any of these such ministries, because the perpetual smiling is upsetting, and so is the fact that all of them appear with wonderfully nice expensive clothes all the time, feh. Be like me, and maybe we can talk. But, anyway.

Anne Rice was featured in the magazine. She did an interview. Seems she is now "totally converted" and will from now on write nothing except works that celebrate her Christianity. She says that her conversion was in place in 1998, and in 2002 she made the further decision to stop writing her popular stuff and devote herself to this new body of work.

She came across in the interview, I am sorry to say, as shallow, vapid, insubstantial, un-insightful, and almost unintelligent. I was a bit shocked, actually. And, also, now I'd like to find out what year her husband passed away. Because I already know that Ms. Rice claims that the death of her daughter in early childhood had nothing, nothing at all to do with the fact that little-girl immortals kept showing up in her works... see above, un-insightful. So, here she was talking about a conversion which changed her entire way of living and thinking, but referred to it as "not that much of a big deal" and "no event in my life pushed me into this," but... at some point during that span of time, her husband died. So, I was just wondering.

However, I also must say that she looked mahvelous in the photo. I do so adore older women... give me lines of wisdom and eyes that look calmly back with no anxiety about "am I impressing them enough?" oh yes! She looked wonderful.

Re: Somewhat Off-Topic

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

People change.... It seems a pity, though, that Anne Rice would (as it were) turn her back on the books and the style that made her fame. I did so love her early slashy historicals! I also enjoyed seeing her house when I went to New Orleans.