After our flight to Boston, as we ate a much needed meal at the hotel, I scrolled through Facebook. “Bryan! One of my favorite authors is speaking tomorrow night at the library in Concord.” We grinned at each other. Katherine Paterson, author of Jacob Have I Loved, winner of two Newberry Awards and two National Book Awards would speak. And we were in Concord!
As we entered the room, Bryan pointed upward and I gasped. I’d stepped into the library in Beauty and the Beast–three stories of bookshelves on all four sides of the long room, filled with books, and sliding ladders to reach them. As the author gave her speech, I took pages of notes. Here is some of what she said (paraphrased of course):
“After I finish a book, I always think, well, this is my last one. Well, that was a great career.”
“The stories we love tell us about ourselves.”
“Writers interrupt a stream of time and form it into a shape, and a consummation.”
“We hunger for stories–they heal us and make us whole, give us visions of truth, and we learn what it is to be human. Beauty, simplicity, harmony, brilliance and clarity.”
“I am faith-based, biblically oriented–word become flesh.”
“Your book is whoever you are.”
“My books are only black squiggles on the page until the reader brings their own self and imagination to it.”
It was an unexpected, soul-filling evening.