April 21, 2021

Greetings Mr. Pinkwater!

You, my dear sir, are a literary (and maybe otherwise as well) genius!

Our family has read or listened to every book you have published. Some more times than the FDA or OSHA would deem healthy. We have reached the unanimous conclusion that you are brilliant.

Stuck on a desert island, we would hope to have a box of your books and an mp3 playing devise wash ashore with us.

Your website kindly shares your otherwise unobtainable audiobooks for free and the library carries many of your books that are no longer in print. We’ve purchased the books we can to support you, but we feel like freeloaders on a buffet of wonders. How can we support you in the manner to which you have no doubt become accustomed? Can we donate to support the Pinkwater Archives or perhaps mail you a 3 foot salami?

Sincerely,

Nick (not our real name, a nickname)

My genius is its own reward, although recently someone had a pound of Nova (that's a variety of smoked salmon, not a piece of a discontinued Chevrolet, or some soil from a Maritime province), shipped to me from a certified lox-shipper, properly iced and not dangerous, and that was a pretty good reward. If there were a way to get Montreal bagels to me before they became rock-solid stale, that would be another good reward. A 3-foot salami is the sort of reward one comes to regret.  I had a wheel of New York State Extra-sharp Cheddar cheese sent to me, a fairly decent reward. But, you are aware, are you not, that publishing houses have been rewarding me with money all along, after fiddling with the accounting in their own favor, of course, so it's really uncalled-for for readers to individually reward me?