Connecting + Reflecting: A Journey Through Fan Mail and Personal Discovery
I have eight if I include Meghan Daum[1], but she had to respond because I paid her a lot of money to attend her writing workshop. It would’ve been weird if she didn’t, so I’m on the fence about including her.
Not all those I wrote to responded, which I find equally rude and reasonable. I like to imagine I’d be a potentially benevolent famous person people might write to, and take meaningful amounts of time with them, and so expect this attitude from those who are actually famous, an unreasonable expectation, certainly. But if Nick Hornby[2] could write back, everyone could have.
Maeve Binchy[3] did. A woman who sold millions of books certainly didn’t have to write anyone, let alone drop a postcard to some small-town woman mailing missives. And yet she took the time to send a handwritten note, a thing I appreciate even more knowing she’d suffered from terrible arthritis. I’d been reading Time to be in Earnest, where PD James detailed the weight of obligation of replying to fan mail, and I felt both perfectly justified expecting replies, and perfectly shamed by the belief I was somehow owed.
I include on my list Carolyn See,[4] who started me on the whole gig of writing for real. After being struck by the realization that nothing separated me from published writers but the published part, the hormonal courage brought on by late night nursing of my daughter saw me determined to fix that. See authored a how-to for would-be writers, and included such advice as to dress how you think a writer would. I went around for months wearing black turtlenecks, feeling fabulous. I glommed on hard to her suggestion to post five kind notes a week. I was random in my mailings, and once sent a card telling strangers how much my toddler loved their outdoor Christmas decorations – it had been the high point of our day when we rounded the curve on the way home and saw their giant roof-top Santa. They must’ve wondered about the person who took the time to mail them a thank-you, sans return address, for putting up holiday décor. If it was me, I would’ve wondered if this was the start of something. Would a stalker end up mailing photos of me at the grocery store? I’d have immediately pounded in the for-sale sign. Of course I wrote See and she wrote back, but always in my mind was the thought that she’d been obliged, since it had all been her idea in the first place. This reduced my satisfaction when I received her reply.
One person I wrote to back then doesn’t necessarily fit on this list. I sent Olivia Hunt[5] a letter basically begging her to be my agent. I’d recently read The Secret,[6] written a novel, blogged every day, and decided – those black turtlenecks working their magic – I’d get exactly the literary agent I wanted. This would, of course, be one whose firm represented Famous UK Authors, even though I am Canadian and live in Canada. I’ve always been inclined to the British (See: books, TV, fashion), and wanted to catapult myself into a flat in London, where I’d hobnob with Oxford-educated women named Sloane who wrote pithy columns for The Guardian. Ms. Hunt, who around that time had been, I think (not certain this is true at all) having a fling with a prince and had been written up in London papers for her excellent fashion sense, replied personally, on gorgeous and expensive creamy thick paper, suggesting (kindly but firmly) I’d be better served by someone on “your side of the ocean.”
I wrote Ari L. Goldman[7] to tell him that I was coming to New York for my first visit. I offered the suggestion that – along with all the typical touristy stuff I planned to do – I track him down in his office, a sort of self-curated New York scavenger hunt. It must’ve sounded bizarre, because he explained later how he’d forwarded my email to his publisher, who thankfully told him I sounded less crazy than super-fan, and said it was probably safe to meet me. We had a nice visit in the office that was just as I’d imagined; a jumble of books and magazines and old press badges hung on the walls. He told me about his daughter who had a job with a Canadian water charity and we chatted about Lorna Crozier.[8] I’d gifted him her memoir Small Beneath the Sky, and told him it was evocative of my life, not considering till I was on the plane home that while I’d meant prairie skies and endless landscapes, he may have assumed I’d been referring to poverty and alcoholism. He didn’t ask me to be his friend, or invite me to dinner, or wonder if he could come to Canada to visit me someday. While I hadn’t necessarily expected any of these things, I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you: I’d secretly hoped for all of them.
I wrote Elizabeth McCracken[9] before Ari L. Goldman. I’d read her book because Nick Hornby suggested it. I’d anticipated witty prose like his; pictured myself sobbing with laughter. Her memoir was the furthest thing from comic. Tight, sharp writing depicted her writing life in France alongside her pregnancy, and then the tragedy of her baby’s stillbirth. I finished the book weeping so much I figured there must be something wrong with me. I wrote her immediately and told her how her words moved me, and how her writing was beautiful, even though it cracked my heart. I explained how it had been Nick Hornby who had led me to her. She kindly emailed back and said it made her happy to know he’d recommended her. She had another baby, and then – I think, another – knowing this healed the wounds on my heart a bit. But fissures like that are never gone, they merely scar over. You become at the same time a little tougher, and a little more broken. I’d known this intellectually, but the births of my own daughters demonstrated this truth every day; my heart’s vulnerability had become that much more exposed to the elements.
If I’d had to speculate back then who could’ve served as my new best friend, it would have been Rufi Thorpe.[10] On the couch next to my TV-watching husband, I devoured an essay of hers. I read it on my phone, which is not how I usually do things; aside from Audible while driving or folding laundry, I’m a truly, madly, deeply luddite who craves paper, but her words on the tiny screen made my heart beat fast and my hands got all sweaty. I texted it to my mother and a friend and just said THIS. I wrote Rufi to tell her how I felt and she wrote back very fast, and said she understood. Of course she bloody did, and thank god for her, to say it all out loud like that.
Christy Vannoy[11] and I were what I would’ve then tentatively called friends although we never hung out because she lived too far away. We met in Megan Daum’s writing workshop in New York. I’d googled the crap out of everyone on the class list prior to arrival and felt I had a good sense of who would show up. I knew before we met that I liked Christy, and I wanted her to like me, too. Razor sharp. One of those people who puts things together with a perfect economy of words shot through with wry observation. We messaged back and forth after that weekend; I imagined a lifetime of thoughtful correspondence. I’ve been friend-dumped before, but when she suddenly stopped replying it hurt, even admitting I’d expected far too much.
As my one child turned to two and then two turned to three, I clung to the notion I’d one day admire my own books on shelves. As time slipped past I touched the spines in my library, holding fast to the notion I might still see a slim volume with my name on it next to the Goldmans and Butalas and of course, Carolyn See. I noticed the authors I could no longer write to, like Diana Athill, whose first memoir in her forties had been followed by a second in her nineties. Even though she lived to a hundred and one and was proof of hope, I understood hope to be only part of it. I allowed dreams to slip away, to surface only sometimes and for only brief moments. Those turtlenecks had faded in the wash; they had not been replaced.
But life moves relentlessly (until it does not) and if we’re lucky, we realize we choose when and what to carry. There are once again black turtlenecks folded in my drawer. Other notes have made their way from here to there, with varying degrees of what I deem success. Perhaps others still will. I’ve been working on one to Elizabeth Renzetti[12] for years now, because I’d been astounded by how much she wrote in her book about things I either think about far too often – like losing my glasses in a war – or not often enough – like ensuring I have sufficient funds when I write a cheque to the school. But there’s a fine line with fan mail. The nuances must be exquisitely tuned, or it all goes off the rails. I do still like to think that maybe someday there will be a flipside, that I will be writing back to people who write me.
And of course, I will reply with charming gratitude.
[1] Author of well-named The Problem With Everything, MD is responsible anytime I use the phrase “to be sure” when I acknowledge the other side of an argument. She’s got loads going on so find her online if you can.
[2] Nicky Hornby, fabulously English writer, author of many books, including High Fidelity and About a Boy, both adapted to film. He not only wrote back in handwriting but also sent a list of authors he thought I might enjoy [See: Elizabeth McCracken].
[3] Maeve Binchy – like you haven’t heard of her – was the Irish author of many books, columns, and short stories. If you haven’t yet read any *gasp*, start with a cold glass of Chardonnay, a beach, and Tara Road.
[4] Carolyn See, American writer and professor, who encouraged me to call myself a writer when I was still doubtful I deserved the moniker.
[5] Olivia Hunt, who has been called “willowy,” was once an aspiring literary agent, is now, as far as I can tell on the internet if I’m looking at the same person I corresponded with, the wife of a London barrister. Also this piece was written years ago so who knows what she’s up to now, but I’m sure she’s still very polite.
[6] You must know this book that swept the nation in the early 2000s, instructing people that if they just wanted something badly enough, they would get it? If there was a dearth of success in your world, well, you just hadn’t thought the right thoughts! Scratching the surface of these vision-boards wasn’t as pretty; see: cancer, childhood disease, etc.
[7] A journalist for many years, he now teaches at Columbia (again: time has passed - who knows if he still does?). The Late Starter’s Orchestra is his memoir around learning to play cello again in his sixties. It is an excellent read, especially positioned as it was in my pile, against Globe & Mail writer Ian Brown’s Being Sixty, a depressing tale so at odds with his usual writing that I wanted to write to ask, why so sad?
[8] Prolific Canadian writer who is from my province – proof prairie dust can function just like pixie magic.
[9] Her memoir has a gorgeous title: An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, and I gave my copy to an old friend who needed it.
[10] California-based writer I adore wholly on the basis of her essay Mother, Writer, Monster, Maid. I haven’t read any of her novels yet, only because I am terrified I won’t immediately and intensely connect with them and I’m not ready to allow for that possibility [Update: still not ready, late 2023].
[11] I have no idea why this woman isn’t hosting her own monologue-driven talk show, but she must have her reasons. Read her at McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.
[12] Globe & Mail journalist and author of Shrewed: A Wry and Closely Observed Look at the Lives of Girls and Women. And, as I discovered when I went to get the link to her site, a new book which I will now pre-order because she’s terrific. Coming March 2024.
Dedicated to the women who had a profound influence on me in that air-conditioned room in the library: To Becky, Danica, Joanne, Lynn, Laura, Sue, Joanne, and of course, Jane.