Author Love

  
Ah February, the month where hearts turn to thoughts of love...for our favorite authors of course!  In my humble unesteemed opinion, authors are worth their weight in gold.  A good author can take us places in a blink of a reading eye, to exotic locales and eras where we never thought we'd visit.  They do it very cheaply too, and they can repeat the process over and over.  Great writers help us take our minds off our troubles for a while, and they can accomplish this sans the next-day hangovers and occasional blackouts-what a deal!

Me and Kerrelyn Sparks

  I have great love and appreciation for all my favorite authors, and thanks largely to Facebook and Twitter, I can contact them anytime I want, and they are always so wonderful and gracious.  Last July I attended RWA for the first time and got to meet many of them.  Believe me, I was on Cloud Nine!  

In retrospect, that was actually quite brave of me since the first time I tried meeting a favorite author I was left completely heartbroken and devastated. To this very day, I can no longer  bring myself to crack open any of his books.

  It was the early 1990's, and I was a huge fan of a very popular Christian fiction author.  One day he came to a church in Tucson to give a presentation.  I was so beside myself with excitement and anticipation that I could barely stand it!  I arrived at the church and found him speaking with a young woman in her early 20's.  The two of them were busy chatting away, and I stood off to the side waiting for him to finish and acknowledge me.  I was no more than a yard away.  Never once did the author take his eyes off the young woman to look up at me, or to his "handler" who was walking around the room talking to other folks while keeping his eye on his "ward".  He was probably his agent or something similar.  Well, I kept waiting and waiting as the time for the presentation to begin drew near, but the author and his captivated fan were still going strong.  The "handler" guy-for lack of a better term-came over to me and said that the author didn't have any time to speak with me, but would I like these lovely autographed bookplates from the author?  I accepted them graciously, and was quickly ushered away.  I sat down in my chair stunned, completely numb as my mind kept racing over the events that just transpired. Okay, he had time to chat the ear off ONE person, but could not be bothered with me?  Did I do something wrong?  Did I act like a weirdo?  Did I smell?  What???  While I sat quietly and listened to his presentation, tears kept welling up in my eyes.  I kept thinking, "How could you not even acknowledge my existence when I'm standing *right here*, love your books so much, have purchased every one, and have shared them with everyone willing to listen about them too?"  I would have accepted even the smallest token of acknowledgement from him; a smile, a simple "hello", anything to take home with me and remember forever!  I also recall thinking that he was much shorter than I expected, and how ironic that he turned out to be "small" to me in so many ways, sigh.

Jennifer Ashley and me.

   It's a good thing I did not allow that experience to deter me at the literacy book signing at RWA in 2010. I would have missed out on meeting my current favorite authors who bring such joy to my life.  Several were new to me; I had only read one book of theirs before attending but they already had my heart.  Their books make me a better medical technologist because when I come home from a hard day at the lab I can read their novels to relax, laugh and become refreshed before another day of work.  Even though I joke that when I go to work I "have to save lives now",  THEY save mine! 

Me and Bonnie Vanak.

  So from the bottom of my heart, thank you to Kerrelyn Sparks, Lara Adrian, Bonnie Vanak, Jennifer Ashley, and Terry Spear-you all have my heart!  To Lara, I am so looking forward to meeting you this year in NYC! BIG hugs to you all!
  I'd love to hear from you all now, have you met your favorites in any way? What is it that you especially like in the way they communicate with you?  Thanks for sharing!