11/9/23

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

I have to admit, despite the Moments I’ve been writing, I’ve been having a difficult time. When so much of your life is focused on one thing – in my case, writing – and that one thing goes off the rails, it’s hard not to go off the rails with it.

For me, the knocks came fast and furious, like a one-two punch, and they weren’t small punches. Finding out that my books, all of my books, were banned from my local school district, including the school I graduated from, and where my name hangs on a wall featuring successful alumni, was the first punch. An uppercut, let’s say, firmly on my jaw. When I found out, I ran into my school and took a photo of the plaque with my name on it, just in case they would decide to take that down too. I still have the award, which is a pretty thing, sitting on a bookshelf in my office.

What’s so hard to accept with this (I have been banned before, but this time…), is that this is the administration that stood behind me when I was seventeen years old and a senior in that school. They had a creative writing magazine (they don’t anymore, nor a school newspaper) and they accepted a story I wrote. It was, amazingly, set in Heaven. God was a computer and Jesus was what I called a “computer mechanic” because “technician” wasn’t in general vocabulary yet. The end of days came, which was essentially the computer breaking down. The people of the earth looked up, shrugged, and then went about their lives.

Some parents found out about my story and said the school shouldn’t publish it, it was sacrilegious. The administration stood behind me and published it anyway. I felt protected, safe, lifted up…and respected.

And now…my books are banned. Hope Always Rises, which came out after the ban, never sat on a shelf in my school.

Soon after this, a list was published online, showing all of the 183,000 books that were stolen in order to train AI (artificial intelligence) programs for computers. Yes, stolen. The books were protected by copyright, but the books were taken without permission. And no compensation. I put my name in the search engine for the list, not expecting to find myself, but there I was, with my first book, The Home For Wayward Clocks.

I’ve written about this before, but it’s leading up to what happened this week, so bear with me.

I teach writers. I encourage and support them. I advocate for them. And suddenly, I found myself wondering if I should be. I wondered where the respect for writers was going, or if it even still existed at all. We’ve all seen commercials, television programs, and movies about people whose jobs were taken over by computers, and we’ve seen these people pack up their things and walk sadly away from places where they’ve worked hard, been faithful, been productive.

Suddenly, I pictured writers, pictured myself, closing my computer lid and walking away. My books were banned by a place that once supported me and had my back. And computers were writing books by stealing the words of real, hard-working writers.

It’s been difficult.

But last weekend, at the Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books, I found myself surrounded with readers. They filled the hallways and the classrooms. At one point, when I stepped out of a room where I was presenting to go to another room where I was going to be on a panel, I found myself totally immersed in a crowd of people (all mostly taller than me, which isn’t hard to do), calling my name, asking questions, filling me with comments.

And, in one of my presentations, called Real Talk About The Writing Life, I heard myself saying that you have to choose to be a writer because you love it. You love words. You have passion for what you do and what you want to accomplish. And I heard myself. My voice, which started out shaky, built in power and conviction.

And respect. Respect for what writers do. Respect for what I do.

So where did that come from? Why did it come back?

The day before the festival, I received an email from a reader. Among other things, this reader said:

“I went into this book cautiously and came out in love with the characters and the story. I cried throughout most of the chapters as the story grabbed me by the throat and the heart and caused me to reflect so deeply on things and people I have lost. It caused me to look at suicide differently and that thought alone will take me some time to process. Thank you for writing this!”

Thank you for writing this. Oh, right back atcha.

And then, just a couple days later, I received another email from a different reader. And among other things, this reader said:

“First, I am a newer Christian and second, I was the wife of a man who committed suicide.   I wasn’t sure if your book would upset me by bringing back those memories but it was completely the opposite.  Your portal warmed my heart and brought peace to my remembering.  It just made sense! The way you captured the multitude of emotions and events that encompassed so many types of people – WOW!   But, oh, how you personified God!  It was perfect!  I still keep thinking of his flannel PJs. I have read books that I wanted to share with people but I have never had the overwhelming compulsion to buy your book for people in my life. Thank you for your creative genius and amazing imagination.  Truly, your book will never leave my heart!”

Trust me, this reader wasn’t the only one who cried.

This week, I gathered myself together. You know when a fighter falls into his corner and all those people work on him and lift him up and thrust him back into the ring?

I’ve been thrust back into the ring. And I’ve come out swinging.

Thank you to everyone who attended the book festival. Thank you to the mob that surrounded me. And thank you to the readers. Thank you to the readers. Thank you to the readers!

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.