When in doubt, hit “send”

I enjoyed this NYT piece, “The Perils of ‘Contact Me,’” on authors being all-too-accessible to their readers. Ben Yagoda writes that for him, being contacted by a reader is “flattering, and it’s actually kind of fun” — though some authors get stranger messages and are a little more wary (Mary Karr, for example, says, “I get a handful of jailhouse marriage proposals every time I publish a book”).

These days, it’s hard to imagine a time when, as Yagoda notes via this excerpt from Catcher in the Rye, authors weren’t at all accessible, when a reader of a good book once wished “the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.” Now (with the well-known exception of J. D. Salinger, of course), most authors go out of their way to be accessible, whether they write for a magazine or newspaper or whether they’re writing books. It’s what we have to do.

The writer Laurence Leamer tells Yagoda he always answers notes and queries from readers: “Every author I have ever known answers the phone the same way — on the first ring. We’re all so desperate for anything to intrude on our solitude and to take us away from that blank screen. E-mails do the same thing, and I’m embarrassed to say how quickly I read them.” This is so true.

But in addition to getting a reprieve from one’s own writing, it’s great to build relationships with readers in general. Perhaps because email makes this easier now than ever, I loved hearing this story on Larry Dark’s blog in which he shares his experience receiving a note back from Raymond Carver after Dark sent him a letter expressing his admiration for Carver’s “A Small, Good Thing.” Dark writes: “I had just quit law school to pursue writing fiction, and getting a response from the great man himself thrilled me, almost seemed to validate my choice. I swore that when a fan wrote to me, I’d write back, just as Carver had.” I think hearing back from a favorite author meant even more back in those days, when a response took so much more than hitting the Reply button.

But the point is: Write to authors whose work you like. (And rest assured that if you don’t like the work, the author has likely heard about it from a zillion others already.) Ask questions. And if you’re a writer on the receiving end of a kind note, always write back.