I am still hyperventilating over a letter [an email] I received from Emma Donoghue.← This is Emma. She is one of my favorite contemporary authors. Her work is exquisite, and [in my opinion] not read by nearly enough readers out there. If you yourself have not read her, then that alone proves my point.
You are one Emma-less person too many!
I have read three of her novels, and I am so glad that there is a lot more of her work, yet to read.
OK, so here is what happened.
My reading partner and I [The Surfacing Reading Club. Very elite! Over 3 years old. Membership → A steady 2.]… we decided to write Emma Donoghue a letter, because truly, of the over 100 books we have read together, Emma’s books definitely stand out as like…. top ten stuff!
So we wrote this letter, and when I say “we” I really mean that the better half of the Club wrote the thing, and that half is not me. She is a far better writer than I.
But the tone and the gist of the letter might as well be the words of both of us.
We sent the letter snail-mail.
It was returned to us, undeliverable.
Next step.
Email.
BINGO!
Just yesterday we received an e-reply from Emma.
When I came home from work and opened up that email I nearly fell over.
It begins thusly… I usually fire off an immediate two-line thanks for the rare fan letters I get, but this one deserved a more considered reply. In fact it's the most wonderful fan letter I've ever received.
Hey! She had me at hello!
Now, I am not going to divulge any more pure Emma-ness with you, because… the whole thing is just too sacrosanct. It is holy. → SHE WROTE STUFF TO US!
All of that awesome good juicy stuff about the inner workings of Emma’s characters. Answers to questions we asked her. Stuff about fictional personages that are so real to the Surfacing Book Club that real actual people seem so incredibly drab you want to throw something at them!
So no.
I shall not share our private and holy Wondrous Emmanations with the gawking world!
But I will say this. Ms. Donoghue closes her letter by telling us that she is busy at work on her next novel. It will be called The Sealed Letter, and is based on an 1860’s divorce case.
The Surfacing Book Club© will DEFINITELY be reading that book!
And in the meantime, we'll be reading the other Emma books that we have not yet gotten to!
Vive l’Emma!
To learn more about Emma, click here.
And even here.
Also, I have written about Emma in previous blogs, like here, and here, and here, and here.
Gotta go and re-read her email to me.
Bye for now…..
**********
6 comments:
Very cool when an author writes back!
I will have to add her to my list of authors to check out.
I have had similar experiences myself and the elation of that kind of personal contact with someone whose work you admire is wonderful! Enjoy the high!!!
Very cool! I've not read her, but she's going on my list now!
Cip,
Enjoyed reading this.
I am a teacher who once had a group of poetry students who read the John Ciardi poem "Keeping." It was a very allusive thing and we were all a little puzzled by it. The central metaphor was one of putting a dog in a bottle. So my students and I carefully wrote a letter to him, asking him some things about the poem, trying to show him that we really had looked closely at it.
He wrote back - Holiday Inn stationery from a Florida location in his own tiny handwriting - greeting us as "Scholars."
Ask me if that made a deep impression on those kids.
The letter was a full page long and it reflected Ciardi's well-known mantra that we should ask not "what" but "how" does a poem mean. He discussed not only that particular poem, but expanded his comments to include a general exploration of poetry.
That letter did more for those students' appreciation of literature than all the inspired teaching I could have ever mustered.
I often wonder how many letters authors get. Your experience with Ms. Donoghue (her Slammerkin is indescribably delicious!) makes me want to write to one of my own personal favorites...Jose Saramago. Am I having delusions of grandeur? Setting my hopes too high?
I wonder if my reading partner would do something like this with me.
I think I will try to coax him into it.
Great blog, as usual. Loved the recent Lennon quote too.
YES!
She is very cool!
I encourage you all to drop what you are doing, and buy something Emmanent!
She is a better author than any of my blogs are hopelessly failing to describe!
Dear Anonymous:
I know what you mean re: the Ciardi.
I am a huge fan of C.S. Lewis, and one time I wanted to contact a Lewis scholar, the prolific author Lyle W. Dorsett.
All I knew of him was that he taught at Wheaton College, in Wheaton, Illinois.
So I wrote there, asking some stuff I wanted to know about his research on Joy Davidman [Lewis's wife]. Well, be danged if I did not recieve back a handwritten memo, on Wheaton stationary. I cherish it, to this day, like a sacred relic.
NOTE: However.... the response from Emma Donoghue is still making me way more crazier than this former event. [Did I mention that I received another email from her TODAY? And..... no, you CANNOT have her email address. Sacrosanct!]
Did you know that in some cultures, this second email from her would mean that I could now be entitled to freely take one of her unleashed oxen for a walk around the block, UNESCORTED?
YES!
It is an awesome thing to consider!
THANK YOU, EMMA! [If you are reading this comment, could you please say something here in the comments section so that people do not think I am merely making all of this up. They already know that I am pretty much a lunatic, and so the first thing they are going to think now, is that I am a LIAR, along with it.]
And dear anonymous, since I myself love Saramago so much, would you like to write a letter to him, together, like?
sincerely,
-- Cip
Cip,
I'm not sure you understand how dangerous escorting an unleashed ox can be.
But they are most definitely shaggy and cute beasts -- like some bloggers I know.
But be that as it may, yes, I might be persuaded to write to the venerable Saramago with you.
However, perhaps I should seek clarification concerning the manner in which this (alleged) "collaborative" effort might be played out...seeing as how this brilliant reading partner of yours sort of carried the day in the composition of this (alleged) letter to Ms. Donoghue.
I live about an hour away from Wheaton College, by the way. You might want to visit there sometime...check out the archives on Lewis. I understand they are extensive.
I could show you around the campus and then we could work on Jose's letter.
Love your blog. Don't go sane on us.
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