I am the Village

     My best friend is preparing to move cross country.  In preparation of this we have decided to send postcards each week.  She gave me the Penguin book cover postcards recently and I began the search for some more postcards.  What cards would best represent me?  Anne Taintor?  Mystery books?  Travel?  Diet Coke?  I turned to my trusted advisor, google, and entered literary postcards into the search box.  I found many, but one stood out.  “It takes a group to raise a writer.” That’s what I purchased. 

     Several of my friends are writers, you see.  They met in an online writer’s group and have been critiquing and celebrating their work for years now.  Me? I’m the reader.  I read their works in progress through their revisions and sometimes I get to read them in hardcover form at Costco. They are the group, and I am the village.  Because, you see, it also takes a village.  You need someone to tell you how it feels.  What they felt or did during different parts of the book.  I’m not a technical genius, but I know how a great book feels.  So I get to read the rough drafts of what will become great books.

     This blog is my attempt to tell the stories of a reader.   I may include stories from my everyday life, but mostly it will be about books and writers. To my friends, I say thank you.  Thanks for trusting me to read and respond.  Thanks for believing I won’t put your rough drafts on the internet.  Thanks for letting your characters live in my dreams.  Thanks for writing, because the world always has room for a great story.