The first time I met Neil Gaiman, I was sixteen, pimple-faced, socially awkward, and had my nose buried in one book after the other. I had very few friends, although I was surrounded by acquaintances, and spent most of my time in the local library scanning the shelves for Stephen King, Michael Crichton and Dean Koontz. At that age, I had thought myself quite the scholar, a lover of the written word, and had written my first novella which, ultimately, had only been read by friends and family (and to this day, those same people are the only ones who have ever set eyes on that miserable piece of writing).

I didn’t know who Neil Gaiman was. As far as I was concerned, my head was filled with what I called ‘favorites’, and I had come to the unseemly conclusion that I didn’t need to broaden my horizons any further than that. I was set. I was good.

It was a friend of mine who first introduced me to The Books of Magic, raving on and on about graphic novels and how this one writer, Neil Gaiman, was the best there ever was. I didn’t believe him. I was young. I was stupid. And I was skeptical. Still, the graphic novel was forced into my hands, and my friend literally sat next to me while I read it, adamant to make sure that I at least gave The Books of Magic a shot.

And I devoured it.

Page after page, panel after panel, one magical moment after the other. I couldn’t put it down, and when I was done, I wanted more. Whatever I had believed about storytelling, had changed considerably, and in the span of three months, spending day and night reading Sandman, I realized that my idea of ‘favorites’ was quickly changing.

You see, the stories had spoken to me in a way very few stories had ever done. The fantastical, the absurdly strange, the worlds that existed just between your fingertips and were hidden somewhere in between the cracks of reality. It was almost as if you expected to turn to the left, just a little awkwardly, and find yourself smack in the middle of a completely different existence. For the first time in my life, I found myself lost in the stories of a man who I believed had found a way to reach into the darkest corners of my mind, pull up a chair, and say, “Hi, there, let’s talk.”

I’ve been a fan ever since.

I’m writing this because someone asked me, “Why Neil Gaiman?” And the problem is, you can’t really answer a question like that in one or two sentences. Especially when the question comes from someone who believes literature stopped before the 1900s, and the only books worth reading were those that involved characters that have gone through so much inner turmoil, they’d make Mother Theresa blush. People who look at me like I’m a madman because I teach Gaiman in my literature class, or because I think ‘October in the Chair’ and ‘A Calendar of Tales’ are two of the most incredible short stories I have ever read. People who don’t understand that stories are meant for the imagination, and to make you wonder and dream and forget and love and laugh and cry.

People who don’t understand that for some like myself, a story can save your life, and can be honest and truthful even if the truth is laced with magic.

So why Neil Gaiman?

Neil Gaiman for his love of the story, for his belief that words have power, for his insistence that libraries are the haven of the lost, for his respect for art and his admiration towards those who create it, for his sharing of what is true even if we find it hard to believe, for his humor and his sarcasm, for the simple fact that you never go into one of his stories and come out the same.
Because of Gaiman, I will always believe that Death is a sixteen year-old girl I’ve had a crush on forever. Because of Gaiman, I will always look at the written word as an art form that requires attention, deserves respect, and should be handled with care and a lavish amount of responsibility. Because of Gaiman, I have changed, and will never be the same again.

I have never met Neil Gaiman in person, but I have gotten to know him through his stories. And within each story, in the deepest corners of my mind where he has pulled up his seat, I’m left with a feeling that we’ve had a lengthy conversation like two friends who have been reunited after an incredible amount of time apart.

After all, ‘time is fluid here’. And stories last forever.