This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Have you ever been so inspired by an author’s work that you wish you could tell them exactly how much they have impacted your life? In this series, Literary Love Letters, we do just that – share open love letters to inspiring authors. Today, The Blue author Lucy Clarke writes to Maggie O’Farrell.
Dear Maggie O’Farrell,
We haven’t met. Although sometimes I talk to you.
Well, I suppose – technically – I talk to your books. It happens like this: I’m reading one of your novels and I come across a paragraph or scene of such sheer lucid beauty, that I find myself exclaiming, ‘Oh Maggie! That’s incredible. How did you do that?’ If my husband happens to enter the room, I’ll enthusiastically quote passages with wonderment in my voice, as he hurriedly backs away.
You see, Maggie, I think your writing is off-the-scale good.
Just having your novels on my bookcase makes me write harder and better.
A friend introduced me to your work seven years ago. I was going travelling for the winter, and packed a copy of After You’d Gone in my backpack. I read that book tucked in the dusty folds of a Chilean mountain range. I sobbed. Not just a few drops of tears – but chest-shuddering, nose-running, headache-inducing crying. Your characters are so real that I just want to pick up the phone and tell them it’s going to be okay.After that first book, I was hooked. I’ve read – and re-read – every one of your six novels to date. I’ve noticed you’re not big on social media. You don’t blog. You don’t tweet. You don’t Facebook. In fact, I have to dig around the web to find even the occasional interview with you. But that just makes me sit up straighter when you do have something to share.
Like an entire BOOK!
When I hear that a new ‘Maggie O’Farrell’ novel is being released, I become feverish with excitement. I’m not usually a hardback kinda girl – but I make an exception for your novels. I take my brand new book into a quiet space, and once I turn that first page, a hushed, reverent silence falls upon the house.
Except for when I’m talking to you.
With love, respect and admiration,
Lucy Clarke