There is no me without you

There is no me without you.

There are no writers without readers. There are no writers without booksellers. There are no writers without librarians.

You make what I do possible.

And by “what I do,” I do not mean the act of writing. I make that possible. I mean the ability to reach people with my work.

I know, and have written many times and have told aspiring writers many times, “A real writer is one who really writes.”  That’s from a Marge Piercy poem I can recite by heart. What she means is that publication is not what makes a writer a writer. Being a writer is defined by the way you see the world, the way you use writing to figure out that world, what’s important, what makes sense, what you think.

And Piercy may also have been alluding to the “flow state,” that time—minutes, hours if you are lucky—when you (the writer, the artist, the baker, the gardener, the athlete) are so divinely focused on the act of creation that you live outside of time, when all that exists in that moment is the doing. The “justification” for writing is writing.

But then, for me, there is being heard (read). There is hoping what I have discovered, what people have shown and told me, what I have come to understand might resonate, might spark questions and discussion and maybe even action.

And so, for me, readers, booksellers, librarians, arts and letters organizations, and gatherings like the one I was part of this past weekend matter. A lot.

This past weekend I was one of four writers at GetLit at the Beach. No, not a writers’ retreat or a series of workshops. No, not a convention or highly orchestrated bookfest. It was instead a thoughtful, organized but somewhat freewheeling, high-energy three-day event designed for bibliophiles, the brainchild of Terry Brooks. That’s Terry Brooks, the fantasy fiction author with 23 New York Times bestsellers to his name. For the record, he is a self-effacing, down-to-earth, generous man, a sweetheart, actually.

And the event, from the opening reception on one of those glorious blue-sky days at the Oregon coast to the spirited closing panel discussion with rain pelting down (we were inside, of course), was…searching for words here: invigorating, empowering, exciting. Food for the soul. I left feeling proud–not of myself, but of the GetLit folks and Cannon Beach Book Company and the Tolovana Arts Colony and readers, readers, readers.

I am back, ready to work.

And the “me without you” begins with the support, encouragement, passion, perseverance and HARD WORK of Heather Jackson.