This piece explores the unseen burden of creation and the ways stories imprint themselves on both writer and reader. Has a story ever crossed over into your life in some way?
Share your experience and keep the conversation going.
It all felt too good to be true, really.
Mordechai had applied on a whim; he was well aware that the publisher should have received thousands of leads for advanced readers. After all, it isn’t every year that Katherine Hobbes publishes a new novel. They used to be more frequent, but, as with anything, time has a way of changing things. After a long career of releasing a new title no more than eighteen months apart, it had been nearly three years since Hobbes’ last book.
Mordechai loved every one of her twenty-seven titles. He had a whole shelf dedicated to his collection, with several of the special editions helping boost the total number in his library to more than forty. He had discovered her late, giving him plenty of opportunity to scour the used book shops for first editions. He read them over and over, annotating and highlighting the passages that struck him. The worlds Hobbes created, the characters that touched his heart, and the themes that ran through her stories all seemed to him a gift he would never be able to repay.
That’s why he applied to read her newest book before it was released. Her silence might be down to a lack of inspiration or a worry that her well had run dry. Mordechai knew that wasn’t likely but somewhere deep inside, he thought he might be able to, somehow, encourage his idol by reviewing her book and providing some words of praise for it.
He never doubted that he would have some.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Wanderlust & Wordplay | Life Abroad & Indie Storytelling to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.