An Open Letter to John McPhee, on the Occasion of the Publication of My New Novel

Professor John McPhee

Guyot Hall

Princeton University

Princeton, New Jersey

Dear Professor McPhee,

I was wondering—and please feel free to say no, if you’re
not interested—if you might be willing to read my new novel, and provide me
with a short, positive (please!) statement about it for the back cover? This is
what they call in the publishing industry a “blurb,” as I’m sure you know. I
would greatly appreciate it. I’d be happy to send you a print copy, or ideally
email you a Kindle copy—I sell a ton more of those, you
understand.

If you’ve ever tried to get beloved nonfiction writers to blurb your reverse-harem lesbian erotic novel, buy my short story collection.

You may be wondering why I approached you as opposed to
other people, especially people who write in my genre. Part if is that a lot of
people in my genre are jerks—just being honest here!—but a lot of it is that
you are one of my favorite authors.

When I was a high school junior, growing up in Ocala,
Florida, we had a list of recommended books that we could read over the summer.
One of them was your book, Oranges, and since it sounded
interesting, and was kind of short, I read it. I was just so impressed that
someone could write so clearly and make a boring subject like oranges so
interesting. I mean, not interesting enough to study oranges in college.
They’re not that interesting. But sometimes when I’m eating an orange—I’m
trying to eat healthier right now—I think about the book, and what kind of
orange it is that I’m eating, and that of course is all thanks to you.

So, anyway, I went to Nova Southeastern for college, and
got my degree in pharmacy. I was kind of thinking about running a pharmacy
somewhere cool, like Miami or something, but I got recruited by Bristol Squibb
Myers and ended up working in Princeton. So one thing I wanted to do when I
moved here was read some stuff by local authors. I went to the Barnes and Noble
in Marketfair—the one everyone says is in Princeton, but is really in West
Windsor—and asked them for help finding someone that was a local author, and
they said, “Well, of course, John McPhee,” and of course I knew exactly who you
were, except I didn’t know that you lived around here. And I bought Common
Carriers, which I really liked a lot.

And then one day, I’m driving home on 206, over by the
Jasna Polana golf course, and there was this old guy who was kind of wandering
around, and someone in marketing said it might be you, looking for golf balls,
like you were famous for doing that? So we’re practically neighbors, which is
why I thought you might be okay with doing like a short blurb for my novel.

Which I guess I should tell you about. I’m really proud of
it, and I hope you like it. It’s actually my third novel—it’s the last book in
my Dominance Trilogy. I mean, it’s hard to believe I wrote one novel, much less
three, but here we are.

So the title is Essence of Power, and it’s a
paranormal lesbian reverse harem fantasy, with a lot of bondage elements. The
heroine’s name is Melinda Carlisle; she works at a pharmaceutical company like
I do, but believe me, the resemblance ends there! When the trilogy starts—this
is in Stirrings of Power—Melinda is just an ordinary lesbian
lawyer, working in the general counsel’s office, but she’s also a freelance
dominatrix. One of her regular clients disappears, and she recruits her
girlfriends—this is the reverse harem part—to help find him, and, well, that’s
the first book, but they come to find out that there’s this paranormal power
that’s centered in Princeton, and Melinda decides to fight it. I won’t go into
all the plot twists, but at the end of the second book, Echoes of Power,
Melinda gets turned into a werewolf. This was my editor’s idea; she said I
should try getting some of the readers in the shifter genre, and it ended up
being a great cliffhanger. So there’s a lot of conflict in the third book,
because everyone in her reverse harem has to decide whether to be a werewolf or
not, and whether to be part of her pack—that’s the really cool element.

The other thing I did in Essence of Power was
to bring in a little diversity. I was on Twitter—you have to be on Twitter
nowadays, although it’s kind of a pain—and there’s this hashtag about how we
need diverse books, so Melinda gets a new love interest named Selena Gonzalez,
who’s a Latina werewolf with a fiery temper.

So I don’t want to spoil it all for you. I will say that
I’m working on a new trilogy, and I’m thinking of setting it in Alaska, so I’m
reading Coming into the Country. I promise to write a nice
Goodreads review, regardless of whether you decide to blurb my book or not.

And probably you’re not going to do that. I understand.
What you’re writing—deeply incisive and well-thought-out New Yorker pieces—is
a lot different from paranormal lesbian reverse harem trilogies. I get that.
What I will say is that, you know, society has changed a lot over the last
fifty years. Fifty years ago, you couldn’t hardly write anything about lesbians
or dominatrixes or anything like that. Now, there’s whole huge giant sub-genres
of lesbian fiction. And it’s becoming more popular. I mean, even my boyfriend
likes reading it, and he’s prejudiced in a lot of ways, although I think I’m
working on him a little bit. Who knows, by blurbing my book, you might get a
lot more readers who like paranormal lesbian reverse harem fiction.

Anyway. I just wanted to write you a quick note and tell
you that I really enjoy your books, and I respect you as a writer, and I hope
you find a lot of golf balls. Thanks.

Sincerely,

Karen Bryant
Princeton, New Jersey
Author of the Dominance Trilogy (writing as Whitney Austin)