authors

This weekend's Trib had a nice feature on author S. E. Hinton, conducted by Lizzy Skurnick of Jezebel's Friday column on children's and YA books of yesteryear, Fine Lines:

The Brotherhood of S. E. Hinton

And there was a fun interview to go with it:

An Interview with S. E. Hinton

I didn't read The Outsiders until I was an adult, at which point I fell in love with it. It still boggles the mind that she wrote it as a teenager; I'm hugely jealous. Most of us still can't write that well as adults.

You devoured their books, staying up way too late to finish them. You hung on every golden word. You wondered how they could see so clearly into your soul when they’ve never even met you.

You learned they’d be signing books at your favorite bookstore, speaking at your local college, appearing at the conference you’re attending next month. You lie awake rehearsing what you’ll say when you shake their hand, striking the perfect balance between humiliatingly gushy and off-puttingly cool.

And then the day arrives, and they’re finally standing in before you. And they open their mouth. And it turns out while they’re genius on paper, in person they’re actually a total jerkwad.

We’ve heard this story too often. It might not be an author. It might be a musician, artist, actor, athlete, politician, spiritual leader* – any hero. Face-to-face, it turns out they’re not only human, they’re not very good humans.

So it’s incredibly gratifying when a hero breaks the mold and turns out to everything you hoped. “So-and-so was so friendly and gracious!” “He offered me advice.” “She offered me encouragement.” This post is dedicated to the heroes who offer their fans the greatest gifts they can in return: genuine appreciation and respect.

A few recent examples:

• Just One More Book interviews Eva Ibbotson, author of The Secret of Platform 13 and other fine novels for young people. It's a long interview, but well worth it for Ms. Ibbotson's gems of wisdom and humor. (I should also mention that Ms. Ibbotson wrote our library a marvelous letter about her childhood library experiences in response to our fan mail last summer!)
• The Oregonian interviews Beverly Cleary. (Thanks to Confessions of a Bibliovore for the link.) Also very worthwhile are Ms. Cleary’s past interviews on NPR: one from 2006, on the eve of her 90th birthday, and one from 1999, when her final book, Ramona's World was published.
• Blogger Miss Erin meets Shannon Hale, her literary hero, and it's everything she hoped for and more. You don't need to know Miss Erin or Shannon Hale to appreciate the sheer joy in those photos.

*Last year, I watched the excellent and illuminating documentary Jesus Camp. In the film, an earnest and spiritual boy named Levi, who aspires to be a preacher, gets to meet his hero: megachurch leader Ted Haggard. Haggard’s response to the boy’s enthusiasm is so despicably soul-crushing it made me wonder why anyone would admire the snake. And that was before the Haggard sex scandal and his oh-so-brilliant response.

**There is no second footnote, technically, but I hate to end on a down note. Let’s cheer once more for heroes worthy of our admiration!