My All-Time Favorite Fiction Author

There is an author who tells of a factory which sings and sighs. She tells of a homunculus with ersatz teeth and a hermit with sardonic knees. She writes of things which are terrible and beautiful, and those who are unhorrified by her words read them and feel her vivid truths settle in their marrow- even if they do not quite understand.

For I certainly know I do not always understand the whole of what is being said. But I know when it is important and true, and great and terrible. And so I cherish the bundles of pages delivered from her soul to mine, in half-ignorance and numbing bliss. I read until my head aches and my eyes are fuzzy. I read until I have to swim up to reality, and her tragic phrases make the world which does not know them unbearable.

How can these people go on in their dull lives, caring about the small things that they do? How can I ring up your items and tell you to have a good day? How can these things matter, when there is a woman who is also a whole mountain range, and a city which writes itself in the flesh of its victims, and a girl whose skin is black with the ink of rare and wondrous stories? How can I begin to describe the important tragedy of the violinist with 10 bows in place of her fingers? How can I speak of the private anguish of the mistress of the Tsar of Life? How very much like Death his kingdom is? Her prose is heightened and tingling, and I fill myself with her language until my heart can bear no more.

So this is the way I dream of writing. Songs pouring from my pen, coaxed up from my keyboard, metaphors that will dance for delighted readers in a way that I can only hope to live up to my inspirations from the great Catherynne Valente.