A Letter to the Author(s)

I've been a big reader my entire life.
And my entire life, I've been writing letters to authors...in my head.
(The letters were in my head--not the authors.)

I think of comments, criticism, and/or praise and write sheafs of imaginary letters.  But I've never bothered to put pen to paper.  Mostly because I've never really believed an author would respond, and--furthermore--may or may not even receive/read said letter.

(However, once I wrote an open letter to Brandon Sanderson and posted it here.)

Anyway, then a few weeks ago, DOUG went and wrote a letter to Brandon Sanderson and E-MAILED it.

Here is the post script he added to his "request to be added to mailing list"
(Have I mentioned we're big fans of B.S.?  The answer is yes.  Yes I have.)

When will you be finishing Alcatraz? My son doesn't like to hear your name mentioned for two reasons, 1-Because I am always recommending your books to people and 2-He is mad at you for the cliff hanger after book 4 of Alcatraz. LOL

Love all your books!
Doug W.

Yes, he wrote LOL, but we'll forgive him for that.  Moving on...
Well guess what?
Brandon Sanderson did not reply to Doug.

However Alcatraz, the title character of the Alcatraz series, responded to Max:


To your son,

I am so sorry that it's taking me such a ridiculously long time to continue my story! The Evil Librarians are relentless and it's all I can do to keep one step ahead of their nefarious plots.  (They even went so far as to convince Scholastic to only publish 4 Alcatraz books and not contract the 5th book!) I have convinced Brandon to buy the rights himself and take my books to another publisher, Tor. They will be re-releasing the first four books, with new less stoopid covers, and then at long last my 5th and final book will be released in the Hushlands!  It may take a couple of years to get it passed the Librarian defenses, but it WILL come out!

Anyway, the important thing is that you keep eating macaroni and cheese, avoid crapaflapnasti items (that shall remain nameless) and stay vigilant!  RUTABAGA, I've got to get going, a horn-rimmed librarian is looking my way!  Time to break something.

Best,

Alcatraz

Best letter ever, right?  It inspired me to fire off my first author letter also via e-mail, and also involving cliff hanger dismay:

Hello Ms. Updale!

My husband, 10-year-old son and I recently discovered and read your Montmorency series.  We really enjoyed them and after the cliff-hanger at the end of book four, went straight to the Internet to find out when book five will be published.  Please tell me there will be a book five?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?  You can't leave ___spoiler alert___ with a __none-of-your-beeswax__!  

How about a short story?  A novella?  A single chapter?  A blog post?  We'll take anything we can get!!!

Sincerely,

Emily and Maxwell 

And amazingly, lightening struck twice and Ms. Updale wrote me back!!!

Dear Emily, thank you so much for your kind words. Like you, I wish there were more Montmorency books. You will have guessed that I always intended to take the story on. Unfortunately, there was a series of upheavals at the publisher, which resulted in the departure of everyone who loved Montmorency. It has taken ages to sort everything out, but It seems that I may be able to get the fifth episode onto the Internet quite soon. 

I won't spoil things by telling you what's going to happens next, but it won't hurt to tell you that __get the book__ survives his ordeal in __you'll have to read it__.

In the meantime, do look out for my newest books: 'Johnny Swanson', and 'The Last Minute' which comes out in January. 

Very best wishes, and thanks so much for writing,

Eleanor Updale

Sent from my phone. Please forgive fatfinger typos and strange words generated by predictive text.

Awesome right?  Two author e-mails in a matter of weeks!

I'm gonna write letters more often!!!