Featured Post: Alysson Reese

Alysson Reese wrote a great article for a guest column in the Commercial Appeal, but it was never published. So, I would like to take the opportunity to post it here, for everyone to see. It's a very well written letter and I hope you'll take the time to read it! Share Alysson's message and leave a comment for her below:

"Dear Editor, There is this oak table. It lives in Laurelwood Booksellers, but according to a January 17th article by Peggy Burch from Chapter 16, it now has a SOLD sticker on it. "It's just a table," some will say. Yet, what began as an acorn, grew strong and nourished life someplace, perhaps for a hundred years or more, then was cut down and built back up into a table by a carpenter's hand--this is more than a table already. A finished piece of oak is usually lovingly polished, oil gently rubbed into its surface to keep the years off. But this oak table has had life breathed into it by thousands of books and their writers and readers. Throughout the years, it listened as a little girl called Poppy read her contest-winning poem to it and all gathered round. Children of all ages whispered the magic of books to it as they sat and read at the oak table. And keepers and makers of that magic--the famous and not-so-famous authors would come to it, lay their palms and pens and books upon its surface, and let their words and worlds ooze into the worn grain. Characters would climb from the pages, stroll around a bit, and sit, feet dangling from the edge, and wait with readers, nay, with friends in giddy anticipation of meeting those whose words changed them, all in hopes of a bit of ink swirled from the pens of these makers of magic and weavers of dreams. I used to run my fingers across the surface and feel the power of the words that flowed through those authors' pens, some my all-time favorites: Kate diCamillo and William Joyce to be sure. And I would imagine one day sitting at that table myself, pen in hand, so honored and humbled to leave the spirit of my signature and a handprint of my book's soul on that table as those who had come before me. That table spoke to me of words and my children and hope and the indelible ink and lives of characters who became living, breathing parts of me. And now someone will have this "just a table" stored away where no other writers will bring their characters to sit awhile and form inked inspiration and tangible connection to, what was for me, nothing short of Wonderland experiences. Sincerely, Alysson Reese"