A letter I wrote Jack Vance when I was 16 #1

Dear Mr. Vance,

A lot of exciting things have happened in the past few weeks.  Last night, I found out the teachers are going to strike April 15th, and...there must be something else.  I guess you’ll have to be satisfied with happenings on a lower plane of thrill.

I’m on the New Pennies staff here.  Not too exciting, since anyone who signs up for Creative Writing II is on the staff, but it’s nice.  I have three stories and four poems in it, the most out of anyone.  One girl submitted all these poems that were very strange.  We accepted one of them, and it turned out later that Doug* (my brother), who had arranged all the submissions anonymously, had separated the poem into two different parts by mistake, so we accepted the latter half, and turned down the first half.  So now we have to print the whole thing.  One of the lines is like, “My feet feel like dead fish on sand afraid of blue water I am too.”  

We are also printing an epic poem.  A real, true to life epic poem.  It was 25 pages, but the author cut it until it will only take ten pages of our 64 page magazine.  It rhymes and everything.  It's about George Nathaniel Hall who didn't want to fight at all.  It gets into God and cosmic issues.  We accepted it, and then it turned out that hardly anyone had finished reading it.  But it is marvelously good. 

My mom just came down here with a scarf over her head.  I don’t have contacts in and it looked like she had bleached her hair blonde.  Minor shock.

You know, if I had known way back last summer that you were a Hugo award winning author and all that, I would have been too awed to write you.  It’s sorta weird seeing your name in print and knowing you’re a real person.

I called the bookstore here and asked when your book would be in, and the guy asked me how I knew what it was called.  I said you had told me, and the guy didn’t say anything for awhile, and then said, “Who?  Jack Vance?”  

I said, “Yes.”   

He made some skeptical noises and said it would be out in April.  He called later with some info and talked to my brother, who backed me up.  

Have you ever heard the word shlump?  My parents are calling each other shlumps at this very moment.

We’re trying to sell the house now.  Have been for the past year.  I wish I could get out of this accursed place in the cornfields.

My mom kept telling me about these worms who invade people’s brains and eyes.  And of course, I immediately started rubbing my eyes and got a head-ache.

I’m sixteen now.  Thrill.  My birthday was March 5th.  I say that in case your birthday is March 5th.  I doubt it, though.  But would be neat if it was.  Being 16 is not total excitement, mainly because everyone else is sixteen, too.

Sincerely,

Kellas

*Fake name in case he doesn't want to be identified in this blog post.