Writerly Gratification

It must be an odd feeling to see someone reading your book in public, to know that they're using a bit of their time to care about the characters you created, the story you took the time to write. With that in mind, imagine how Jay Asher, author of Thirteen Reasons Why, must have felt when he visited a local school and a young woman showed him her journal, "in which she’d copied a handful of her favorite passages from [his] book." That's got to be a good feeling.

Asher, whose book has been a staff favorite here at Vroman's since it first came out, presented his book here last night at a very successful event. He spoke about his book and about the long road to meeting his many fans:

It was my first time speaking to a group where the majority of people had already read my book, which added a cool dimension to the presentation. And the Q&A was a ton of fun. It even got a little silly when someone asked me to describe some of my earlier books. It became obvious, very quickly, why those books never sold.