Dear Kelley,
I ran across Solitaire a week or so before Christmas, attracted by the cover image, and was amazed and delighted to discover that you had finally written a novel. My first encounter with your work was when I read “Strings” in the (’94?) edition of The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror anthology. Perhaps it was partly the nature of the character that made that story so precious to me (I’m a violinist as well), but it instantly became (and still is) one of my favorite pieces of short fiction. I’m not easily overwhelmed, but by the final page I was weeping. Reading it aloud to my girlfriend a little over a year later, I couldn’t keep my voice steady when I came to the end. Your work is extremely powerful, and I felt blessed just to have read that one story — it caused me to make a serious inquiry into what I value about life, and living. I can say without hesitation that it changed me.
After my experience with “Strings,” I sought out the rest of your work, and loved it, but since ’99 or so I’d been tormented by the “is this it? is that all?” sensation one feels when waiting (and waiting . . .) for a favorite artist to produce something new. And then, finally, I found Solitaire, and I rushed home with it, and I read and re-read until I became completely absorbed in Jackal Segura’s life, and her story. Then, when I finally set it down (I usually devour books at an alarming pace, but this one I savored, taking it a few chapters at a time) I realized I didn’t have any words to use to tell you how grateful I am. You gave me a journey I can make again and again, and a whole world.
I don’t mean to be so effusive with my praise, but there are very few authors whose work I can connect with on so many different levels, and I value those few quite highly. Your writing inspires me to live as fully as I can, to create, to dream, to love . . . and to hope.
Sincerely,
Aislinn
These are lovely words to give to any artist, and it means a great deal to me to receive them. Thank you.
The waiting wasn’t so much fun on this end, either. Nicola and I share a metaphor about writing, which is that there are points where a work-in-progress becomes a desert — nothing but dust ahead, nothing but dust behind. All the writer can do is stick her chin out and keep slogging. There were a couple of years of dust during the writing of Solitaire, when the work went particularly slowly because of the demands of my job at Wizards of the Coast, and also because I made a serious wrong turn in the narrative. I had to trash about 15 or 20 thousand words, about a year’s worth of work at the time. That was a very bad day. It took a while to get back on track. So, thanks for being patient.
I’m still getting used to the fact that strangers have read my short fiction and liked it well enough to go out looking for more. I’m not trying to be coy — it’s literally amazing to me that someone might pick up Solitaire and think (some version of) hot damn, Kelley Eskridge wrote a book! My stories have been so few and far between (at least in publication terms, although not in terms of my own process) that it hadn’t occurred to me that people would persist in seeking out my work.
Nicola and I were talking last night about the ways that art gets in and stirs up the soul. I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced art that changed me like a lightning strike, but there are particular works that have influenced me incrementally but immensely, like weather systems moving across the ocean. They are works that speak to the deepest parts of me, and force me to recognize things within myself – values, as you’ve said. In almost every case, they are works that confront me with the truth that I can be more than I have let myself imagine – I can work harder, be braver, see more clearly, endure more, go farther, have more joy.
And then there are those experiences of art that are like mainlining joy, struggle, sadness, fear and courage, hope, loss, redemption. Emotion speedballs. Music does that for me, and movies, and particular piercing moments in books. There is nothing like it, for my money. I will always be fascinated by the quality of humans that compels us to seek out such moments, and to create them for each other. I think whatever power there is in my work comes from this place, but that’s me looking at it from the inside out. You are a musician – is making music like this for you? I know there are other uses for art, and perhaps one day they will interest me more than this one. But not now (grin).