It’s been almost six months since my first book, War Bonds: Love Stories From the Greatest Generation was released. I’ve signed hundreds of copies, but at a recent reading I was asked to sign something that brought tears to my eyes.
A sweet lady approached me before the event began and said, “I’m wondering if you will sign something for me?” And she pulled out a bulging scrapbook from her basket.
It was filled with clippings from from my Spokesman Review newspaper column, The Front Porch.
“I’ve been saving them for years,” she said.
So, I blinked back tears and happily signed her scrapbook.
Writers are nothing without readers. To think my columns mattered enough for her to save delighted me. It also made me happy that my next book will be an anthology of those columns. Who knows? Maybe in a few years I’ll be doing another reading at that venue and this time I’ll have my own “scrapbook” of sorts, to sign.
Cindy Hval 