Big, sloppy thank-you to MetaFilter!
I
asked a question about four months ago and was thrilled by the excellent responses. I mentioned in the post that it was for a book I was working on -- and now
that book is here. Tomorrow, in fact, is the day it comes out. And even though I thanked folks in the book's acknowledgments, I wanted to thank everyone here as well -- especially the women of Ask MetaFilter who answered the question about books that changed your life as a girl, and some other people who inspired and shared their knowledge.
I wrote to
grumblebee for some thoughts on Shakespeare and was thrilled to get a near-instantaneous reply. I emailed
corpse in the library about girl pirate lore and was able to learn some facts about historical and fictional women at sea. Their generosity helped create two fantastic chapters: one on telling ghost stories (thanks to grumblebee, I was able to include the ghost scene from Hamlet, one of the scariest ghost stories ever), and one on daring girl pirates (thanks to corpse in the library, I didn't fall prey to thinking some of the fictional characters were actually real). And that question about books? That helped inform a chapter called "Books That Will Change Your Life."
I told my co-author while we were writing the book that the research and writing of it all felt like writing 100 MetaFilter posts. She didn't know what I meant, but it was a compliment to MetaFilter.
Anyway, thanks!
P.S. I'll be talking about the ghost story chapter on the Today Show this Wednesday, and I'll be reading at the Astor Place Barnes & Noble at 7 on Thursday if anyone would like a thank-you in person!
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posted by mathowie at 2:30 PM on October 29, 2007