Julia Johansen

September 20, 2001

I am so happy to have found this forum. I am a 25 year old fan of yours, I majored in English, have read the “greats,” and still find myself rereading Lizard Music and the such. Your books are so original and fresh that I find myself still rereading them and experiencing the same joy as when I first “discovered” them. My absolute favorites are Alan Mendelsohn, the boy from Mars, Lizard Music, and Young Adult Novel. I must have checked these out from the library dozens of times before realizing I could buy them ^_^.

Anyway, I’m really more of an armchair fan of the non-rabid kind. I haven’t read all your books, am by no means a Pinkwater expert, and have never even been to the east coast. That said, I do love the books of yours that I have read, reread them on a regular basis, and on Monday, September 17th, 2001, I finally fulfilled a ten year dream of mine and got the large lizard from the back of the original hardback copy of Lizard Music, tattooed on my right calf. People think it’s the Sobe Lizard, but really it was my way of capturing the joys of my youth. I had a reasonably unhappy childhood and thanks to authors like you and the public library, I was able to escape these “horrors” for hours on end.

Thank you so much for creating the likes of Kevin Shapiro and Alan Mendelsohn and my “Pinkwater” Lizard.

Julia Johansen

I will try to live my life, and pursue my art, in such a manner as to be worthy of your calf.