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Author Access

For almost three years, I've been conducting an ONLINE book discussion for the organization, Gotham City Networking, Inc.  (www.gothamnetworking.com).  It all started with the book "Water For Elephants" and author Sara Gruen.  We didn't start out thinking that the author would be involved.  It was your basic book club meeting with a twist: our group would read the book and meet online to discuss the novel virtually.  It was all set.

I decided to try to contact Sara Gruen's publicist or agent (by email), to see if Ms. Gruen would care to provide a comment or quote for my summary of the book, the few paragraphs I had planned to use to kick off the discussion.  Within 30 minutes, Sara Gruen herself emailed me back indicating that instead of providing merely a quote, she would happily participate in our online book discussion.  Wow!  Really?!  And she did.

I was pleasantly surprised.  More than that, I was in awe.  Having Sara Gruen join us online to talk about her best-selling book was more than I could have anticipated or hoped for.  Maybe it's because I write and love the process of writing that I find talking to writers so fascinating.

Over the course of three years, we've featured pulitzer-prize winning authors, tremendously successful NY Times best-selling authors and a bunch of other very talented writers.  I've been intrigued and amazed by, and grateful for, their insight, humor and participation.

We finished up a discussion today with David Nicholls, author of "ONE DAY," for which they just finished filming the movie adaptation.  He was a gracious guest full of thoughtful comments about his process, characters and story.

If you love books, you should join us for the next discussion.  As I tell every author at the end of the session, chatting with a writer you love is PRICELESS!

Comments

Anonymous said…
Too bad more people do not participate.
October 14, 2010 at 3:31 AM
Julie Ann Klein said…
i know. i don't understand why more people don't want to talk to authors, even virtually. what insight we get into the mind of a writer!
October 14, 2010 at 4:33 AM
Joanne said…
Do it for yourself, Julie.
October 14, 2010 at 7:33 AM
Dice Thrower said…
Doing it for herself is not the point, otherwise she could simply attempt a private dialogue with the authors concerned.

You can go deeper though. Structure it better. The questions and answers run together. Too random.
October 17, 2010 at 9:04 PM
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