Libby

April 9, 2000

Hi there Mr Pinkwater,

How kind of you to answer notes from avid readers, fans and hangers on. I am yet another librarian (I really wanted to be a dancer girl in a rock band but things didn’t work out) from Canada and a real hanger oner. I am delighted Lake Ontario gets mentioned in your next book. I stumbled across your novel The Snarkout Boys… the first year I taught ….in a very small town in rural Ontario…where there is no culture except for men whose pants don’t seem to pull up properly and really tough women who hung out in Laundromats with tight jeans on and high heels. I was very alone there. When I stayed at school too late the caretaker would shake this bottle of pills at me and say “them guys don’t bother me – I have my friends here.” Yikes. I really needed your book. It took the edge off weird and helped me cope. You’ll be happy to know I got another job and got out. Then the small town got a serious doughnut shop and seemed to get a whole lot more tolerable after that.

I didn’t get to read your book to real kids until I taught a class of grade 6 and 7 gifted kids. (They helped me understand the Jewish stuff. My background being a ministers daughter and all really didn’t help.) The only part that made me nervous was the Nazi science teacher. Anyhow, I just got your new book. (5 Books!)I am happy. Is it possible to hear you in Canada? Will you come on a book tour? Toronto has many people who wear chicken under their toques, eh.

Best wishes,

Libby

P.S. At the risk of sounding like an MTV interview or something I would like to know what music you listen to.

Denise Hays

April 9, 2000

Hello David

I Love Your book Do You Have any New One Out Tell Me

Got To Go Now

Denise Hays

Ryan Noble

April 6, 2000

Dear Mr. Pinkwater,

I discovered Hoboken N.J. one day in the fourth grade, when I was assigned to do a book report on the wonderful book, Lizard Music. Later, I discovered the worlds of Java Jack and the snark-out boys. Now, I read The Big Orange Splot to my three year old and have fallen in love with your work again. As the author of my son’s favorite book, I thought you might be able to help with a particular problem… potty training. I figured if anyone would have good advice on this subject, it would be you. Thank you for existing.

Any reply at all will be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely, Ryan Noble

Bonnie Tollefson

April 6, 2000

Dear Mr. Pinkwater,

I have enjoyed your books for many years, as well as your chats with Scott Simon on NPR. I recently completed reading the 4th book in “A Series of Unfortunate Events” by Lemony Snicket. I am hooked on this series, and wonder if you have an opinion of it…well, actually, I really wonder if you are Lemony Snicket? If not, do you have a theory on his true identity?

Sincerely,

Bonnie Tollefson

Lower School Librarian

Leah Walton

April 5, 2000

Mr. Pinkwater,

I fell in love with you a few weeks ago, when I was quite sad, in my car, on a long car ride. I just left some friends across the globe in Moscow, and was feeling so lonley. I was listening to “Car Talk” because I thought it would make me feel better, or at least I would learn something about my car which I hardly know how to drive. Well, the next caller came on the line, and it was no other than you! You told us all about your new car (the bug), and some other stuff…but I found out that day, that you were so smart and such a beautiful speaker. It put me in a better mood, and I had a good car ride. Imagine my surprise when I was once again listening to NPR, feeling lonley, (but not so lonley anymore,) and there you were again. Goofing around with Charity, and reading from a most marvelous book. I was hooked!

I wish I could give you a happy ending for the lonely writer sending you this note….so I will! Your tales spread smiles on my once weepy face, and I tell all my friends about lizards, and a book in which they can be found–and you might find that “Lizard Music” is suddenly popular in the English bookstores of Moscow.

Thanks for cheering me up,

A Friend who Danced to Lizard Music

Jim W.

April 4, 2000

Dear Mr Pinkwater–some time ago in a fit I wrote to you criticizing your using yourself as a foil to get laughs. Self-immolation was not funny to me, I know about being the butt of a butt. Since then you have publicly taken several heavy stands on some very weighty matters like taking on people who claim to have direct correspondence with God, and in those instances used your considerable presence for some genuine pushing around where I think some vacuums exist. I apologize and make amends.

Nat

April 3, 2000

Keep scrolling down, and if you don’t find it, go to the archives. For information on Ken Kelman, I suggest you go to his web site, (which has real webs, and isn’t on the internet).

Hillary in Kentucky

March 31, 2000

Dear Sir:

I am an enormous fan of your work, and have been since I read parents’ battered copy of “Hoboken Chicken Emergency” at seven, which both claim never to have seen before. (I’m 14 now.) My problem is this: I purchased a copy of 5 Novels last fall at my local mass conglomerate word peddler, and enjoyed it very much, especially Young Adult Novel. I lent it out to a friend who I believed would appreciate it as well. Fast forward to now: Friend still has book. However, recently discovered she has some very severe problems (familial, psychological, etc.) that any excess conversation I have with her worsens, i.e.she’s become very uncommunicative. (I should mention I’ve only known her this school year.) I asked her about it once, and she said she would bring it in, but since hasn’t, and I hate to keep reminding her. Do I keep harassing her with reckless disregard to fragile emotional state? Buy another copy? Be cheap and stay deprived? I’m suffering without my DP fix…Thank you.

Edward Weiss

March 30, 2000

Dear DP and admiring fans,

I just stumbled upon this while doing research for a paper. It’s taken from an online encyclopedia of Celtic culture. Could it be a mere coincidence, or does the Spellbound family dog have an illustrious namesake who’s been heretofore undiscovered?

FAFNIR

Ed

Len Schiff

March 30, 2000

Dear Sir:

COMMENT ONE

If I were to talk all about how your books changed my life, made adolescent life tolerable, made me wealthy, sexy and secure and probably turned me into an English teacher (which I am), I’d only be repeating themes written to you a thousand times. But it’s all true, and so for giving me the gift of high weirdness, I offer you my greatest thanks.

COMMENT TWO

A few years back, walking through Rego Park NY and reading a Sandman comic, I stopped dead in my tracks (I was, fortunately, on a sidewalk,) because a character addressing a detective named Pinkerton called him Detective Pinkwater. Feeling all warm and pleased, I filed away the knowledge.

Years later, at a book signing, I met the author of the comic, Neil Gaiman. I told him how much I appreciated the Pinkwater line. “I know,” he said, “he’s really cool, isn’t he?”

And Neil Gaiman is pretty cool, so all I can say is that it takes one to know one. (have you read his kids’ book, The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish? I think you’d approve.)

QUESTION ONE

Where can one get a recording of the stage production of Snarkout Boys with Brent Spiner?

QUESTION TWO

I once ran across a demo tape of a musical version of Young Adult Novel, and I thought it was really fantastic. As the theatre guy at the school where I teach, I’d love to do it next year. Do you know how I can get a copy of the script to read?

Yours in dada,

Len Schiff

Robin Shapiro

March 29, 2000

Is there anything potential book buyers can do to persuade a publisher to issue (or reissue) more of your books? Is there someone to whom we could send letters or e-mail declaring our interest? And what information can I give my local NPR station about Chinwag Theatre?

I’m a college librarian, and I find it interesting (though not surprising) that nearly every children’s librarian I know loves your work.

Robin Shapiro (not, as far as I know, related to Natasha)

David Vartanoff

March 26, 2000

So what I wish to know is–did you typically encounter the chickenman on the ‘l’ or the 26 Clark Wentworth? I used to see him on both in the fifties.

Yours david vartanoff

ST2T3

March 26, 2000

Dear Mr. Pinkwater,

Recently, my 8-year-old daughter, for a third-grade project, wrote and illustrated a short book (1,000 words or so) which she called “Mt. Everest’s Vacation”.

1) Do you know of any publisher which might publish and print a few copies of this book at *no cost to us* (something between a vanity press and a real publishing company)

2) Would you read this if I e-mailed it to you? I understand if you don’t want every third-grader in the country sending you a thousand-page manuscript.

3) I am forty-five years old, and I’m the only one in my family that appreciates Chin Wag Theater.

Scott Hilton

March 24, 2000

DMP-

Some 15+ years ago my schoolboy buddy & I “interviewed” you for our Jr. High School newspaper. The interview consisted of us sending you a list of questions and you sending back an audio tape on which you re-read the questions and answered them in such a fanciful way that only you could have done.

We were so proud of our piece that month and more importantly, so thankful to you for being such an accessible “star”. The background “noise” on that tape included a mooing cow and as I sit here at my desk in San Francisco (3000 miles from my childhood home) I often think about you & your staying power BUT I am overly concerned about the cows … how the heck are they ??? Have the years been kind to them ???

No need to send another audio tape to answer the question, a posted message will suffice.

Best wishes.

Your fan through the years,

Scott Hilton

Berkeley, CA

Thomas J. Collins

March 24, 2000

Dear Mr. Pinkwater,

When I was in my Freshman year at Cal Berkeley, I frequently was forced to visit my friendly neighborhood book merchant in search of something to keep me sane. On one fateful trip, at a loss for ideas, I asked the cashier for a recommendation. He pressed Young Adults into my hands and gave me his personal guarantee that I would be laughing out loud before the end of the first chapter. He was of course right. I even snorted, I think.

My favorite section of the book was the final story, The Dada Boys in Collitch, the first chapter of a promised future full-length novel. It made me feel better about my own college experience in many ways — like: I wasn’t alone in my confusion and feelings of overwhelming oppression; like: it could be a lot worse.

I was eighteen then. I am now pushing thirty. (Or perhaps I am pulling twenty-nine.) Last night I reread Young Adults. And it struck me: the book which once kept me sane is now driving me insane. Absolutely insane. I do not like not knowing what happens to the Dada Ducks. I do not like it at all. I have been waiting to find out what happens in chapter two for a dozen years. Perhaps you have been waiting to find out what happens, also. Perhaps you haven’t found out yet, and therefore have been unable to write it down.

I believe you need proper incentive. So: if you finish the novel The Dada Boys in Collitch, not only will I be your best friend, a highly valued commodity in and of itself, but I will also pay you ten dollars, PLUS a shiny new quarter featuring the state of Massachusetts (“The Bay State”). This is above and beyond the cover price of the book. Maybe I will sing you a song from the Hoyt Axton catalogue as well.

Seriously: insane.

Sincerely, Thomas Collins