viii. steve almond

dear steve almond,

you don't know me, but i saw you recently at a reading. the somerville writers' festival was held about a month ago, and you read quickly and then had to leave because your wife was about to go into labor. if i were her, i would be mad you agreed to read at the festival too. but that's not why i'm writing. i was moved by your letter excerpts*, as most were funny, others heartrendingly poignant, and all echoed something i might write myself, which i found most intriguing. so i went to the library, which you will be pleased to know has ALL of your books. and to think i'd never even heard of you. i selected "not that you asked," your book of personal essays, because that's what i like to write, and i hoped it might contain some of the letters you read. it didn't, but i was moved by your homage to vonnegut. i wonder if there's a writer who has had that amount of influence in my life: perhaps lisa carver, whom i have met, or cornel west and wendell berry, whom i have heard speak, or otherwise only the deceased--flannery o'connor, hannah arendt, peter kropotkin, thomas merton, salinger (who, alright, is not dead, but equally inaccessible). i made a zine once and used quotes from vonnegut, who was a fighter until the end. so, unlike you, i do not have grandparents who were communists, but i do come from good country people, and find that i am equally concerned with freedom and truth. so thanks for your words (your essay on the multiple deaths of josephine made me laugh out loud) and keep writing, and reading, and i hope you find another teaching post. you've got two babies to care for now.

sincerely,
ann crews melton

*for the inquisitive reader: steve almond resigned from boston college when they invited condoleezza rice to speak at commencement, after which he received hundreds of emails from right-wing nut jobs, to which he responded publicly at the reading. they included lots of references to his balls, and condi's balls, and hellfire, and expletives unfit to reproduce here.