Back in 1999, I sent a letter to Terry Brooks.
In it, I detailed my hope to become his official webmaster. I had been maintaining a dedication website for three years at that point and it had grown considerably in that time. It had grown because Terry lived in Seattle too and I had the most current information about him to share since every year he had a book signing where he’d share what he was up to and what he was going to work on in the future. Taking a chance, I sent the letter to Random House and Del Rey Books.
I thought it would be fun to work with one of my idols. I was right. He received my letter, we talked, and I was hired. It was a dream fulfilled. Having the friendship with Terry has meant more than words can describe.
All because I sent a letter.
A few days ago, I was perusing eBay to see how much money some of Terry’s earlier books were going for. I do this mostly out of curiosity and to stay abreast of the current secondary book market.
And I ran across another letter.
One of Terry’s longtime fans, a man named John, is selling his entire collection. The fan has everything. First printing copies (yes, multiple copies) of The Sword of Shannara. Rare Advance Reader Copies. Foreign editions. The works. Also posted on the auction website is a letter that Terry had written the fan in 1990. It was obvious this fan had handwritten Terry a letter and the author had responded in kind.
I don’t think I could part with a letter from any author. That’s personal. That’s forever. It also says something about Terry, who truly loves writing fans back.
To my question:
Have You Ever Handwritten a Letter to an Author?
I would love to hear what happened if you did. Did the author write back? Did they not? If they did write you back, what did you do with the letter? Could you ever sell such a letter?
I actually sent a wedding invitation to Chuck Palahniuk around the time Rant came out. Through his publicist, he let me know he would be out of town working on a movie (I think it was the Choke movie), so he couldn’t make it.
About a week before the wedding, we received a wedding present in the mail from Chuck with a letter sharing the meaning behind it. It was awesome and we cherish it to this day.
This all spawned from a call to his fans to send him mail. In the letter, I wrote him about our impending wedding and the planning going on behind it. He sent everyone who wrote to him an amazingly original care package. I’ve never had an author go above and beyond like that.
I wrote Terry a letter when I was 15, I was shocked to find a response in the mail a couple of weeks letter. It really meant the world to me as a teenager because I was so devoted to reading and writing, and Terry was my hero
Thank you, Terry!
I grew up in Sterling and had read Terry’s books starting in 2cd grade with Sword of Shannara. And when I was in high school, he actually took the time to come to our school and do a writers workshop with a few other students and myself. That was one of the coolest things that ever happened in school. hah
And yesterday, Tad Williams (author of Memory, Sorrow, Thorn series) posted a couple comments on my facebook post which was pretty neat.
In my English class in 8th grade we had an assignment to write a letter to someone, and I chose to write to Terry, and I was ecstatic when he responded. It was made even better by the fact that I was the only person in my class to get a response
I’ve written to an author twice. The first was to Robert Heinlein, searching for the name of a story he’d written that I couldn’t find again and could only remember the plot of. Mrs. Heinlein graciously responded with the name of the story and the book it was in.
The second was many years later. I wrote to Robert Ludlum, suggesting that he reduce his use of italics and exclamation marks. He died shortly afterward. I’ve felt a vague sense of guilt ever since.