I recently attended “Authors in Your Backyard,” a celebration of local writers, put on by Wake County Public Libraries. It was a last minute thing for me and I rushed to get there on time but arrived a bit late. I was pleasantly surprised to run into fellow author RS Crow (left), who happened to be on the list of authors that would be reading excerpts from their books that day.
Crow did a great job reading from his new book, “The Bear, The Girl, and the Monkey with no eyes.” The crazy title alone makes you want to check it out. All but one of the many authors in attendance was a traditionally published author, the rest were self-published.
As an author, it is important that we connect with other authors in person. It is too easy to get trapped into a virtual existence. More and more of everything we do is alone. We read alone, write alone, surf the web alone, and shop online alone. I recently saw, as many of you might have also seen, a group of people at a restaurant eating at the same table, each plugged into their phone or Ipad, but completely disconnected from the people right there in front of them. You see it more and more.
If it’s been a while since you connected with fellow authors on a local level, I encourage you to find the next Meetup group in your area and take part in face to face conversation about books. In our group of approximately twenty authors, three were Christian fiction writers.
If you belong to a local authors group, let me know what city and state you’re in, and the name of your group. Who knows? If I’m on the road in your area, I might just stop by.
Diogenes Ruiz
