A Holiday Toast

The winter holidays are upon us, whether you celebrate the solstice, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, something else entirely, or even nothing at all. (I have known many atheists who put up trees, which were borrowed from paganism anyway.) It’s a time where one cannot help but think about gifts. While I like a nicely-wrapped prezzie as well as the next person, the older I get the more I’ve come to value the gifts that don’t come in boxes.

I think about the new reader I acquired at a recent SF&F convention. I saw her again at a Victorian tea last weekend. She gave me a hug and told me how much she loved my books. She started reading the first of my Werewolves and Gaslight Mysteries while relaxing in the bath, and the next thing she knew she was halfway through the book and her wife had wondered if she had drowned. By the end of the tea, I had made a new friend.

The woman who organized my last book launch party was a someone I met through a reading I gave at a Victorian Fair. We don’t see each other as often as we’d like, but I count her as a soul-friend. Another friend does my hair and makeup for such events when she can. Some of my musician friends spent most of last weekend recording the music that will go into the holiday present I’m preparing for my readers (shhhhhhh! It’s a Sekrit!) The singer on that project is also helping me craft a special Ravenscroft fragrance. Let me not forget the woman who makes those lovely covers that draw readers in!

Every good review that I get is a gift that keeps on giving. Not only do reviews translate into new readers, but I actually go back and read them for encouragement on those days that I wonder why I’m doing this writing thing (or worse, wonder if I’m any good at this writing thing.)

So, readers, friends, readers-who-have-become-friends (and vice-versa): I raise my glass to you. Without you, there would be no point in bringing books out into the world. May you have the merriest of holidays and a book-full new year!

Shawna Reppert is an award-winning author of fantasy and steampunk who keeps her readers up all night and makes them miss work deadlines.  Her fiction asks questions for which there are no easy answers while taking readers on a fine adventure that grips them heart and soul.  You can find her work on Amazon and follow her blog on her website (www.Shawna-Reppert.com).  You can friend her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter, where she posts an amazing array of geekery. In the past, Shawna has on occasion been found in medieval garb on a caparisoned horse, throwing javelins into innocent hay bales that never did anything to her. More recently, she has been spotted in Victorian dress taking tea with her costumer friends.