Dear Charles,
While I’m far from the only one thrilled to have this welcome opportunity to congratulate you on this illustrious 40 (and counting) years of your career and to thank you personally, being yet another of the many recipients of your kindness and grace, in my case it’s entirely possible you don’t know why.
Oh, I’m sure you remember how you took the time in 2013 to read my debut fantasy novel and gave it a wonderful blurb I’ll always treasure. My publisher put it first, in pride of place, on the back cover. Thank you!
What you may not realize, though, is how daring it was for me to ask and how significant your answer.
We’d met beforehand, many times. MaryAnn (sorely missed by us all) would always spot Roger and me from a distance at conventions. She’d smile in welcome and give you a gentle nudge to make room. The two of you always made it seem possible we were in the right place. We were surely with the right people. But that was when I, a biologist, wrote science fiction. I’d been published in it for decades. I’d confidence galore writing that.
Fantasy? Something else again. I love reading it. To me, then and now, you’re among the very few authors who bring wonder to every page I read, who write about ordinary people and extraordinary magic, who sees nature as I do—as an integral part of the weave of the human tapestry.
Your work was and is, I freely confess now, as daunting as it is delightful.
Oh, I’m sure you’re shaking your head at this, because one thing you are not, Charles, is full of yourself. Trust me, as someone who finally gave in to the urge to attempt to write the kind of fantasy I loved—that you and those very few on my shelf wrote—the bar you set was in the stratosphere. I adore a challenge, but really?
I tried not to think about that rarified air. I poured everything I had into this single story over three years, gleefully deleting hundreds of thousands words that would not do, starting to collect toads. When done, I’d an enormous manuscript no one but our daughter, not even my editor, had seen. It was, as I’d wanted, a story replete with kindness and compassion, not a hapless victim in sight. I loved it with a wild and most unfounded passion, don’t get me wrong, but the professional in me reared its head at last.
What if it was a lovely mess?
I needed, desperately, to be told the truth.
As whim would have it, our paths crossed once again in a convention lobby, a timely reminder you were a real person as well as a incredible author. A nice Canadian, with all that implies, who cared about others. MaryAnn spotted me and smiled, waving me over to sit. I didn’t dare mention my manuscript.
Instead, I went home that night, composed a very brief “would you?” email, and hit send before common sense overwhelmed me. (There might have been wine involved.)
Ping. You answered right away, with a yes.
What was I do to now? Clearly, I couldn’t simply fire off my enormous pie-laden potential mess to YOU of all people on the planet. What had I thought?
Charles, did you feel the silence from my end? Could you tell I’d collapsed in my chair? In the moment, I was sure you must. Looking back, knowing you a bit better, I suspect you were simply pleased I’d thought of you for something this important to me, while hoping, most earnestly, my manuscript proved readable.
You did. In fact, you called it “an enchanting and gentle fable, rich with detail and characters you will love.” You didn’t just give me a great blurb, you got it. Everything I’d tried to accomplish in this story, acknowledged in a single sentence by a person I respect, admire, and hold on a seriously stable pedestal. Your words gave me the courage required to stop dithering and send in the book to my editor.
As MaryAnn’s smile bade me welcome to sit in your company. Thank you, both.
That said, I’d love to join a party of all the other authors who dared new things and got a case of the jitters, authors you, Charles, said “yes” to and helped without hesitation, no matter how busy you were at the time. If it happens, I hope you come. Just be forewarned we’ll hug you without restraint and sob grateful tears.
The best of us rarely learn how very much they’ve done for others.
That’d be you, Charles de Lint, and happening now.
Forever in your debt,
Julie E. Czerneda
© Julie E. Czerneda
Award-winning science fiction and fantasy author/editor, member of the CSFFA Hall of Fame, Julie E. Czerneda’s latest release is science fiction novel To Each This World from DAW Books. This year she returns to fantasy with A Change of Place. Julie is represented by Sara Megibow of KT Literary.
Celebrating CdL 