When I was very young, I wrote to Steven Spielberg as a part of a class project. All the other kids heard back from the people they contacted. Some received a form letter. Others received personal hand written letters & gifts!

I was the only one who didn't hear back at all & it crushed me. :(

Up until recently, this was my only experience in reaching out to someone in the public eye.

Then, I wrote to Douglas Rogers, the author of the May book our book club read called, The Last Resort. He responded back almost immediately & the little girl in me squealed with delight.

I contacted him after our last book club discussion where we discussed the memoir piquing everyone's curiosity. Was the resort (Drifters) still open & how were the author's parents doing? I thought Drifters was open pointing to a couple of links I found online. Club member Judy Shenk believed the links referenced a tour group instead.

So to find out the truth, I decided to ask the author directly & here is his response:

It was gratifying to hear back from Douglas, but even more so to know what actually happened to Drifters as well as Douglas' parents. (Special thanks to Judy whose discussion point made me curious enough to reach out to our Zimbabwean book author.)

So have you contacted an author you love or hate? If so, what drove you to send a message & what was the response?