Dear Members,
It must’ve been fate as I’ve had two completely different
President’s Message be deleted over the course of a week. The first was an
apology over a miscommunication with the last speaker, the second was an
all-out beggar’s plea for volunteers and now this—a newfound gratitude for the
literary community.
My daughters began a kindness campaign roughly two years ago
and although publicly it appears their message has resonated but behind closed
doors and through the veiled darkness that only anonymous emails and profiles
can provide, there’s been a deep ugliness. Pure, unadulterated kindness somehow
threatens the very souls of people—not unlike raw and well told stories. Books
take readers outside of themselves, asking them to stop looking through their
own glasses but their neighbors’.
One by one, authors, editors and agents have extended
beautiful messages of hope to my daughters. It’s this community (that is sadly
is used to being silenced) that has linked arms with this rising generation and
their Kindness Revolution. It is November, the month we tend to stop and
glorify gratitude—and today, I am no different.
I am grateful for the stories, the lives and the books we
read and write—and more importantly, share. We are the storymakers, the
“changer of lives” as my youngest daughter likes to say. And so, I say, thank
you.
Thank you for chugging along on the uphill battle to
publication.
Thank you for submitting despite the mountain of rejection
letters.
And thank you for rallying around the under dogs and the
silenced.
-
Clarissa Kae