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Not long ago, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto (a novelist, memoirist, teacher, and dear friend), invited me to contribute a post to She Writes, "a community, virtual workplace, and emerging marketplace for women who write, with over 15,000 active members from all 50 states and more than 30 countries."  Reiko herself had been invited to spearhead a series of front-page stories called "The Daily Mentor," and you can find her series on the She Writes front page all throughout this week.

I was, of course, more than delighted to contribute.  I share my post with you here; it will go up at noon on She Writes.  Please check out the entire site and register to join, if you haven't already.

When Rahna Reiko Rizzuto invited me to submit a guest postfor She Writes, I remembered, as I often do, a day Reiko and I once shared inManhattan.  A long walk.  The rocks of Central Park.  A story she was telling about theHudson River.  Turtles.  I remembered that day, and then Iremembered all the years before and after, when Reiko and I have been friends.  And then I had this thought, small andessential:  None of any of thatwould have ever occurred if it hadn’t been for books.  Because that’s how we met, Reiko and I—through the bookswe’d been writing, through the books we had read.

I’ve been getting older lately, and I’ve been realizingthis:  I feel most at peace amongthose who recognize the power of books, who work to write or protect orcelebrate them, who value them, who buy them, who will write an email, 4AM:  I’ve just found a book that I know you will love.  Some may see this as an elitistthing.  I see it as anythingbut.  Lovers of books are lovers ofstories, and stories are foundational, heart-centric, core.

Publishing is hard, full of abrasions and deflations,unnecessarily brusque, unnaturally confusing—or, I should say, publishing canbe those things.   But writingbooks and reading them, loving books and sharing them, is a different matteraltogether—it is a peace zone, a shelter.

I will have published fourteen books by the time next summerrolls around, and what stands out most for me, in all these years, is not thereviews or the awards or the sales figures (never the sales figures!), but thecommunity of book lovers, book bloggers, book friends that I have found andkept, the community that has kept me. What stands out for me is the walks that I have been privileged to take,the conversations I have had, the rescue and the shelter, the promise and thepassion, those turtles sunning themselves on those rocks. 

Something true and affirming has emerged from it all.  Something real, and honest. 

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