In Florida

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeri Fink
Sent: Sunday, February 11, 2001 2:22 PM
Subject: Jeri in Florida

Hi!

Right now I'm in Florida - with a hot sun and churning surf. The water is an impossible blue and the air is warm and humid. It doesn't quite fit with my idea of "winter."

I've been meeting with a lot of different people here - from booksellers to book printers -- and it's fascinating putting faces to names I only knew on e-mail. People who are involved with books are an exceptional group - high tech and old-fashioned book lovers at the same time. I'm amazed by their ability to leap from Shakespeare to e-books in a single sentence! Promoting a novel is a very different experience than a nonfiction book. When I discuss my nonfiction, people want to know about my ideas, my research, and how I feel about some very serious subjects. When I talk about my novel, Virtual Terror, people want to know about me. They want to know how I wrote the book, where I found my characters, and how long everything takes.

It's a very different role. For example, I did a radio interview today. But instead of asking about my theories, the interviewer wanted to know where my characters came from and why I decided to put them in the Virtual Terror environment. Those questions are a lot harder to answer! So here, in Florida, I had to shift from author to novelist. As a nonfiction author, I'm supposed to be smarter. As a novelist, I'm magical. It's a lot of fun to be both - because I never quite know what's around the corner.

Jeri