/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.2346637]

ITT: Correspondence with your favorite authors.

[Anonymous No.2346656]

I'll start with one fresh from my inbox:

Subject: Invitation to join Goodreads and a question about the Worlds trilogy

Me:
Hello,

I'm an avid reader of your books, and I am writing to invite you to join Goodreads.com, which is the largest community of book lovers online. Because you are a published author, you already have a profile on Goodreads:

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12476.Joe_Haldeman

If you join Goodreads, you can claim this author profile and make it your own!

Here are some of the ways you can use Goodreads:
<redacted>

To become a Goodreads Author, follow this link:

http://www.goodreads.com/author/confirm/12476.Joe_Haldeman

P.S: As the book that introduced me to your writings and SF in general, I feel curious about Worlds and it's sequels. ¿How did you get the ideas for the situations and characters in the book? (If you have already written about it somewhere, please direct me)

Sincerely, <redacted>

[Anonymous No.2346659]

>>2346656
Joe Haldeman:
>P.S: As the book that introduced me to your writings and SF in general, I feel curious about Worlds and it's sequels. ¿How did you get the ideas for the situations and characters in the book? (If you have already written about it somewhere, please direct me)

Roberto, the one thing I had in mind when I wrote _Worlds_ was a characterization starting point -- most of the protagonists of hard sf stories are males with technical backgrounds. I wanted to try one with a female protagonist who didn't know anything about science or engineering, and wasn't particularly interested in them.

I guess I should join Goodreads. Later.

[Anonymous No.2346662]

>>2346659
Joe H.
Me:
Thanks for answering :)

I understood so much from the long bio in your website, which I found shortly after sending you the email.
What intrigues me is the satellite "words" (as opposed to colonies in Mars or the like), the believable crippled brainy (Your convalescence?), all the different places of the world (in which my country is portrayed as a) Machist. b) Stinking near beaches).
And let's not forget of the dixieland. Which artists/songs could be heard at Fat Charlie's?

<redacted>

[Anonymous No.2346666]

>>2346662
Joe Haldeman:
Roberto, the crippled genius is based on a boy I knew when I was around 12 . . . a quiet and intelligent fellow who people avoided because he was bent over, hunch-backed. When I wrote about Fat Charlie's I was remembering a book I read in college about making a living as a jazz musician (one year when that career looked more attractive than science). They would play traditional Dixieland jazz.

[Anonymous No.2346676]

>>2346666
(that's it btw)

[Anonymous No.2346708]

I don't have any, but my mom sent nudes of herself to Robert Pirsig

[Anonymous No.2346730]

>>2346708
I feel curious as of how did you come to know this.

[Anonymous110 No.2346737]

>>2346708
...and why? That right there is a story in itself.

"Nudes and the Art of Impressing Robert Persig"

[Anonymous No.2346801]

>>2346737
>>2346730
I think she was a new-ager when she was younger, and after she went to some talk he gave she began writing letters to him and then sent nudes.

I found all the letters in my attic, and when I asked her about it (since I'd read the book) my dad told me about it

[Anonymous No.2346811]

I once sent James Joyce a letter, and he replied back something about my farts.

Also, btw OP, you asked that author a bunch of stupid shit. He probably thinks you're a plebeian. If I were him I would be annoyed that you took up his time asking him something he's probably been asked a billion times.

[Anonymous No.2346820]

>>2346811
What would you have asked him, my dear troll?

[Anonymous No.2346826]

I sent Philip Larkin some Barely Legal porn in '87

[Anonymous No.2346924]

Most authors have a mail direction or contact form listed in their homepage, and devote some time to address fan praise and critic.
Current bestselling and established authors may receive more mail that they can/will handle, so keep it short and concise.
Don't be surprised if it takes them a long time to answer or don't at all. Sometimes editors intercept the mail and give them a digest, or even have dedicated staff doing it.
Don't send them your own prose to read and criticize unless you have devoted enough of your own time improving it to make it a worthwhile read. It may be a good idea to ask them first if they are interested at all.
Whist it's true that some authors only write for money, most do want to spread their word, and appreciate their fans, as long they don't harass them.

[Anonymous No.2346950]

Dear Stephenie Meyer,

Thanks to your books, my sister was introduced in the reading. After twilight saga, she started to read Jane Austen, S. King, Shakespeare and others (now she are reading Dostoievski's White nights and wants to read Borges,too).

I don't like your books, you make a teen happy.

Cheers,

Me