Tuesday, January 17, 2012

My Promise

When I was a junior in college, I wrote for our college newspaper, The Daily Universe. [Side Note: the name of the newspaper is about to become a misnomer.] One day, my editor gave me an assignment for a story to write. There was an author coming to campus to host a "literary boot camp," and I was supposed to call him and interview him for the story. So I did, and I ended up talking to this guy, who was very nice. I asked him some questions about the boot camp and what not. Then I asked him the next question on my list, which was "what books have you written?" Now, if I hadn't been a complete idiot (or otherwise distracted, as I had just started dating Richard at the time), I would have looked him up on the Internet beforehand and figured out that this guy was seriously legit. But alas, I was, in fact, a complete idiot.



He answered, sounding a little bit confused: "Well, Ender's Game."

"Ender's Game..." I repeated. "Can you spell that for me?"

Silence. "E-N-D-E-R."

"Okay, thanks!"

I then continued on with the questions for my story. It's been about 5 years, so I can't remember exactly how his part of the story goes, but I think he eventually figured out that I had no clue who he (Orson Scott Card) was, and I somehow ended up promising him that I would read Ender's Game.



This Christmas, I finally made good on my promise! And I actually really, REALLY enjoyed it! So much so that I am now halfway through the sequel, Speaker for the Dead, which is equally good although written very differently.

Anyway, moral of the story is, ALWAYS, ALWAYS Google people before interviews.

5 comments:

Jenny @ An Apple for the Crafter said...

oh my gosh. Bless your heart. You are too cute.

Richard Peterson said...

May I also add that I lovingly pestered Emily to read Ender's Game with a belief that she would love it. Now if we can just get a movie version... Seriously, this thing was made for the big screen.

Chelsea said...

I've heard that they are going to make a movie soon. That is too funny! He seems like a pretty eccentric person.

jennybhill said...

Emily, this story still makes me laugh. I had actually just picked up Xenocide and was in the middle of it when you posted this. Are you going to read more by Card? (I thought his books on the women of the Old Testament were interesting.)
Richard, I told Aaron that I read online the movie is set to release in the spring of 2013. He just laughed and said that he's heard rumors of an Ender's Game movie ever since he was in middle school.

Aaron said...

That is really funny. According to IMDB, Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley, and Hailey Steinfeld (Mattie Ross in True Grit) will all be playing roles in the big screen version. It seems the movie may be legit after all.