I wrote a letter to Ray Bradbury, the author of Fahrenheit 451, last month. I never expected him to reply at all or even read it, but he did! I was super excited. I wrote that his book inspired me to pursue my future career.

This was his response...

Dear Daphne,

If you ask me what to do to help young people with the future, there is only one answer in life, do what you love and love what you do. Money is not what should be your controlling interest in life, love is.

Live in a library, if that is what you want, let the books teach you, surround you with their love. Then you will be prepared to teach the children of the future.

Love is the answer to everything. There is nothing wrong with today as long as you ignore all the outside distractions and do what you love. There is too much junk around us, ignore them.

When you go to bed tonight, look-up and when you see yourself on the ceiling think about what you want. In the morning, get up and do what you want. If you can teach them, the children, that you will become a great teacher."

Ray Bradbury
03/04/08
12:50 pm. Pacific Standard Time

I'm so happy! :3

I wrote letters to Brian Jacques (the author of the Redwall series) a couple times and recieved letters back. I also went to a book signing by him and I drew him a fanart of his books and I have a picture of him and me and the drawing and his autograph on 5 of my books lol :D It was an awesome experience.

I also went to a Jimmy Carter booksigning when I was in first grade. I don't remember much except that my mom went first thing in the morning and was first in line so she could hold our spots. and My babysitter/family friend came to my school to pick up my brother and me and drove us down there where she was in line. So we were first in line and both got a book signed by him :D XD

It's always cool when authors take the time to write back or visit their fans. :D

that is so nice.. was it hand written? (:

I have never written a letter for someone famous.. ^^

*is extremely, violently jealous*

I love Ray Bradbury. And it just makes me love him even more to think that he takes the time to respond to his fanmail.

Did you just write to his publication house, or did you use another address?

Thats just awesome!

I loved Ferenheit 451 when we read it in school. I've never written a letter to any of my favorite authors because I didn't think there was actually a point because they never read fan letters anyway. Apparently I was wrong. :) Maybe I should send something.

Originally Posted by Maria-Minamino

I wrote letters to Brian Jacques (the author of the Redwall series) a couple times and recieved letters back. I also went to a book signing by him and I drew him a fanart of his books and I have a picture of him and me and the drawing and his autograph on 5 of my books lol :D It was an awesome experience.

I love Brian Jacques and his Redwall series. I have never sent any of my favorite authors any mail though. I probably will get around to it sometime.

Originally Posted by Knerd

*is extremely, violently jealous*

I love Ray Bradbury. And it just makes me love him even more to think that he takes the time to respond to his fanmail.

Did you just write to his publication house, or did you use another address?

I went to his website. He has a message board. If you post there, and have something good enough I suppose... They will fax the letter to bradbury.

He does not use the internet himself. He calls someone to type his exact words for him. It's pretty cool, but it is a bit slow. The response came about a month later, but the community is extremely supportive of posts. They will slowly reply. Heh.

That's really wonderful. A lot of famous authors, or even less famous ones, don't answer fan mail, or just send a form letter. It's really nice that you received an actual response to what you had to say.

thats really cool! i met T.A. Barron when i was like 13 or so. he came to my school and talked to my grade about his books. i had to leave early. stupid cross county. i hated that sport and i made me miss the one speaker i actually wanted to listen too. >_< but he came to our library later so i talked to him there. i also got a few books signed.

Awesome. I never wrote to any authors because I kind of don't expect them to write back. Its gread to know that some of them do :-)

Oh wow. That's got to be crazy-exciting. I'd be so stoked if my favorite authors wrote back to me.

Wow...that's pretty cool. I never really wrote to an author or anything, but I certainly did think about it. I remember that once in elementary school my whole class wrote to Judie Bloom or something; I could be mistaken. She sent us a letter back and a bunch of keychains, so that was pretty neat.

I think I may have to send him a letter now. The only people i've sent some to are via e-mail to some science-fiction authors. The ones I send messages to tend to comb through and answer everything they can. I'll likely have to send something to Rudy Rucker because of his book Postsingular likely.


Yay at not being the only person with a lot of signed Redwall books. :o

Wow! That's awesome! I've never tried writing to an author, i'm really not sure what to write besides "I love your book... etc.etc"

I'm really excited to go to the book signing of Stephenie Meyer for her new book "The host"!

I have some signed Beverly Cleary books. XD

Yeah, not sure what I'd write my favorite authors.

The one I'd actually bother writing to is dead, so there's no point. -shrugs- At least he has an Asteroid named after him, and one after a character of his? XD (Douglas Adams, if you can't tell. That guy was amazing. XD))

Wow that is really amazing that you got a response back to him, since it sounds like it's such a complicated process. It really makes me want to try to right to one of my favorite authors.

The closest I've got to any of that is a signed copy of "Snakes and the Boy Who Was Afraid of Them" By Barry Louis Polisar, because he spoke at my elementary school. The message was pretty sweet though. "To Kate- With my best wishes, best hisses, and best giggle" You can tell he put something into each autograph.

i wrote a letter to Cornelia Funke begging her to write another book after Inkspell. This is what she wrote.

Dear Hope,
I read your letter and was instantly thrilled. My publisher has told me numerous times that I should not write a third book in my series but I completely disagree. I am glad that you agree with my thoughts and will instantly get to finishing the third book. I am thinking about calling it InkWorld or InkDeath.

Thank you for taking the time to write to me.

Cornelia Funke

I was so excited that she actually listened to me! getting a letter back from an author is so cool!

Sometimes I wish that I could send letters to various authors who have passed on. I would love to see what Robert Ludlum thought of the film verison of his Bourne novels and what he would reccomend to aspiring action novelists or just about life in general. I've tried emailing James Patterson amongst others since he seems personable but I've never gotten anything back. That and trying to get a message through toe Stephenie Meyer is impossible. if there was any author that I would ever ask for advice from maybe Ludlum (were he alive) or Stephen Hunter (whom I haven't tried but he wrote the novel that inspired the film Shooter with Mark Walhberg.)

I remember writing a letter to Monica Hughes in grade 5 because I really enjoyed her book The Faces of Fear, which involved a virtual reality game which allowed a girl paralized from the waist down to walk and run and move the way she had before a terrible accident. A boy she doesn't know is asked to be part of the experiemental game also, but the programmer has his own wounds to nurse, and the game becomes sinister and far more real than any game. - - - We also had to write letters to an author of our choice for some kind of reading program. Hughes wrote a lot of rather strange, sometimes slightly creepy science fiction. Stuff that made you think. Anyhow, I wanted to tell her how much I liked the book, and wanted to know if there would be a sequel, mostly because I just didn't want the first book to be over and done with :3 She wrote me back (on a typewriter, I believe) and said no, the story of the two main characters from Faces was over (it was sort of implied that they would eventually find each other in the real world). I think that might have been the firt time I realized that stories do not have to keep going on forever, that often they are better if they have boundaries (ie, not like those crazy, never-ending series' such as Animorphs . . . or the way Redwall is turning out to be . . .). Anyway, I was a little sad but I could see her point.
I was also super-delighted to get a letter back from her, because I was used to thinking about authors as far away and almost fictional themselves at that point in my life. So then I decided to write to J.R.R. Tolkien, because he was extremely awesome and I thought I'd better tell him. Unfortunately, he was also about 25 years in the grave. x(

(This sort of doesn't count, but I think it's cool anyway) I also once wrote an e-mail to Sarah Harmer, a Canadian singer-songwriter, about a song of hers which I was doing a project on. I was so surprised when she actually e-mailed me back, within a day of me writing to her! I was pretty convinced that she was probably too busy and famous to answer my peculiar little questions, but apparently not. Too bad I didn't think/have time to write her snail-mail style, or she might have written back (squee autograph /squee) So that presentation rocked, goes without saying. :D

I remember in 6th grade everyone had to write to an author and only about one student out of the 200+ received a letter back. I didn't know who to write to since I didn't actually read that much when I was younger

That's so sweet, I'm glad you revived this thread, I never would have seen it.

I've gotten nice replies from comic artists and celebrities I've written but never did write an author.

I wrote to Nina Bangs several years ago. I absolutely adore her!

When I got a letter back I was more surprised at the content then the actually fact I got one back.

I had hand written the letter since I didn't yet have my computer and had apologized for the anti-tech way of writing.

When she responded she made a comment about the handwritten part of the letter and actually had asked if I was okay with all the Hurricanes (This was back in like'04 when Ivan hit here in Pensacola). It was awesome. She also sent me a Bookmark advert from her next book that she signed. I still have both somewhere around here.

I've never received a letter from an author, but its awesome that some of you have received personal letters from an author. Now I feel like writing to Markus Zusak, but I'll have to craft the letter carefully before I'd be willing to send it, lol.

This is amazing! That hasn't happened to me, but I sure wish it would!

:3