James Preller's Blog

I might be going back to the same well too often here, but this brief follow-up from a recent Skype session cracked me up. There’s no reply from me worth reading, just the letter.

I occurs to me: maybe I’m doing the “just a regular guy” thing a little too convincingly? Could I be too regular?

I think I’m going to have to reverse direction and cultivate an aura of “specialness.” Talk about how my books are like my children (no, they are not), how they write themselves (no, I do all the work, thank you very much), and various other quasi-mystical notions about sitting in a chair and doing a job.

Next Skype, I’ll wear a cape and hold a live ferret on my lap.

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Dear Mr. Preller,

I am a 6th grade Language Arts teacher at PVMS. We recently watched you Skype live with our school. It was amazing! The kids loved your personality and said things like, “He’s just a regular guy.” 🙂 This lead to a discussion about how ANYONE can be an author, including them! Of course I’ve been trying to tell them this forever, but apparently they didn’t believe it until meeting you!  The book is great, and we really enjoyed it. It brings the bystander into the spotlight, which these kids needed. However, the best part for me, as a writing teacher, and avid reader, was that moment when they realized they could do it too. So thank you for that! The real reason for my email is that my students all signed a thank you card for you, and I need an address to send it to. Do you have a P.O. Box perhaps? Thank you again for taking the time to inspire future authors!

Sincerely,

Chrissy