10-10-13 RMB Gerri Hill Letter

10-10-13 RMB Gerri Hill Letter

Dear Rita Mae Brown,

You are blessed with this onslaught of letters, oh lucky you. However, I did take a moment to write to Gerri Hill, author of over 20 books. It was in an email and I will include an excerpt of that email here because it ends with one of the points I try to make in this blog, that the sharing of stories is important because in doing so, we share more than stories, we share our lives. I encourage anyone reading this blog to check out her website www.gerrihill.com, where you can click on Books and see all of her works. I have read several and would recommend every one. Here is my GH letter:

From: lorainepaige@live.com
To: gerri@gerrihill.com
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2013

Okay Gerri,      
You are plumb evil. I literally have a few dozen books checked out of the library right now, ranging from how to use Windows 8, to books on habits, performance and weight loss (I've lost 60 pounds, but have more to go, still searching for every bit of info that will help me on this final stretch), plus I am ONLY on the second Rita Mae Brown/Sneaky Pie Brown novel (I'm trying to make my way through all of her books), ...there are books I've bought, collecting dust...biographies, exercise techniques, great philosophers, magazines about this year’s football teams, plussssss I work for a small publisher and I try to read some of our books once in a while. Right now there are two I would like to read sometime in this lifetime. Whew.

So why are you plumb evil? Because, instead of reading the stacks of books in my home, as I wait for the kids to finish playing at McDonalds and later as I sit in my car in the parking lot, waiting for the sister to finish at church...I am reading Gulf Breeze.

Plumb evil.

And now I am home, writing you instead of writing my novels...plumb evil I kid you not.

Seriously though, I enjoyed it. I finished it tonight and refuse to pick up another Gerri Hill book until I finish at least one of the other three books I am mid-way through...or for as long as I can fend off the impulse...there is another one here someplace, Artist's something. I refuse to go find it to get the exact title for fear I might start reading it.

I see something precious in words multiplied many times over when words combine into stories, especially stories that reach inside of us and help us grow. We live in a society where majorities dominate and it is more important than I can express for the minorities to have a voice.

Your books are windows into lives that others need to see, not because the lives are so radically different from the average joe, or josephine, but because they are a little different and very similar at the same time. It is only through the stories of our lives and those we can imagine, translating them into life with words, that we truly see one another.

Please, keep writing,
Loraine