This week I celebrate the published release of my daughter Katie’s first young adult novel, The Boy Next Door. What joyous affirmation of a writer’s work, to be published! I am reminded of the confident and comforting words of poet Wallace Stevens: After the final no there comes a yes, and on that yes the future world depends. I am reminded of one of my favorite scenes from the film Back to the Future when Marty McFly’s dad reverently opens the box that contains copies of his newly released novel.
“Because for some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth,” says Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird (p. 15). “What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you.”
“I cannot remember a time when I was not in love with them,” says Eudora Welty in One Writer’s Beginnings (p. 5), “with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself.”
A writer pours her heart and mind into the intense work of creating stories, she breathes life into words, opens a window and calls out with wonder to the world: Come join me. And one day she opens a box filled with copies of her very own book, the exhilarating confirmation that her words are going out into the world. Katie wonderfully captures that joy through photos in her blog of January 6th as she sees her novel on a local bookstore’s shelf for the first time. Congratulations and much love, Katie!
“Because for some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth,” says Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird (p. 15). “What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you.”
“I cannot remember a time when I was not in love with them,” says Eudora Welty in One Writer’s Beginnings (p. 5), “with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself.”
A writer pours her heart and mind into the intense work of creating stories, she breathes life into words, opens a window and calls out with wonder to the world: Come join me. And one day she opens a box filled with copies of her very own book, the exhilarating confirmation that her words are going out into the world. Katie wonderfully captures that joy through photos in her blog of January 6th as she sees her novel on a local bookstore’s shelf for the first time. Congratulations and much love, Katie!
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