A Letter to My Readers

My dear friend,

Thank you.

Your time is precious. You do me a great honor stopping by. I will repay your kindness with a promise to make your time here fulfilling, enriching, and perhaps even transformative.

All this from a novelist? Fair point.

Let’s talk about fulfillment first. You and I both love to read. We can disappear for a few minutes, or a few hours, into untraveled worlds of fresh cathartic experience outside our daily lives. The words on a page leap to life in our minds. We can see entire scenes unfold before us. For good or ill, we can gaze into the depths of characters’ hearts. As far as I’m concerned this shared vision makes us good friends already.

In writing DEADRISE, it’s my keenest intent to grab you by the collar and haul you off to a small forgotten island in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay where both fortune and danger assail our man Ben Blackshaw on all sides. Trusting his neighbors, his fiancé, and even himself become a luxury Ben cannot afford. Don’t rule out the Chesapeake as a character in her own right. She is mercurial in nature; Ben’s ally one moment, his worst enemy the next. I hope you enjoy DEADRISE. I truly believe you will.

What about enrichment? I have to tell you, the Chesapeake Bay is troubled water. An entire beautiful ecosystem at risk. My young son Beau has been quoting The Lorax lately. “I speak for the trees!” Though I am not the sole advocate for the Chesapeake, her current state, or her future, I will add my voice to describe her charms and her perils, particularly in my blog. Want to try blue crabs or oysters? I’ll share recipes with you. Want to know why the bay’s harvest is in jeopardy, and how you can easily help? I’ll gazette you about that, as well. And then, wherever you live, you and maybe your kids can raise your voices and speak up for the Chesapeake with me.

But what could possibly be transformative about visiting a website? I already know you’re a passionate reader. Again, I cannot thank you enough. But it’s possible that you also write! A genuine friendship must work two ways. I can write to you until I’m blue in the fingers, but I genuinely hope to, and need to, hear from you. What are you writing? How is it going? Tell me about your process! Perhaps you are keeping a journal. Maybe you’re an avid letter writer who still treasures stamps and envelopes. I need to know why you write, and what you get from it. So reach out to me, and tell me about your experience crafting words into prose and poetry, fiction and nonfiction. If we commit to a dialogue here, we will never be the same. That is transformation. Will you accept my invitation? Please take a moment to write me. Then take some time to read!

Wishing you lots of eye-popping knock-outs in print,

RBW