I was ten years old when Brian Jacques came to my little hometown in Maine during a book tour. It was my first celebrity experience, for all the celebrity the late-great man was. To those of us who grew up in his golden age, he was THE author for late elementary school kids. But I’m pretty sure the rest of the world barely recognized his existence, probably why his book tour went through Maine and not strictly to Chicago, Boston, and New York.

Of all the teachers I’ve long forgotten whose lectures droned on, all the friends I had in childhood whose faces and discussions I can barely remember, I can still hear his voice. He read the second chapter of Redwall for all of us (well, he recited it from memory). It was, of course, rather distinct. The great bearded Englishman bellowing the descriptions of his dreaded villain, Cluny the Scourge, emphasizing the holes in his ears and golden teeth and the weapons he carried. He signed a few books, which Future Me would have told my parents “Just…just splurge a little bit to get each kid their own copy, they’re meeting their hero right now”, but Past Me was happy enough to share with my little brother and sister in the autograph dedication. It was The Long Patrol, if you were curious.

But before all that, the first words from the man’s mouth are what really let that voice stick in my head. “Hello, my name is Brian Jacques, and I’m an author,” the man stressed the syllable greatly. He then recalled a funny story back in England where the teachers tried to encourage audience participation from the students at an assembly he did there, leading them on with “This is Mr. Jacques, and he is an Au-…? An au-?” when some small girl cried out in despair, “Oh he’s an orphan!” which played really well for a bunch of kids listening to the funny accents involved and watching a grown man try to weep like a five year old.

“But yes I am author. I am not a writer. A writer just sits down and pens words for a job. They get paid to do some writing and that’s the end of it. I am an author. And I’d appreciate you not calling me anything else.”

And here I sit, twenty years later, and that vivid memory plays in my head whenever I try to do my business writing. It would be lovely, if I could make my full living off my stories, but that certainly isn’t the case. While I do flip-flop the terms interchangeably, when I sit down and want to leave an impression of myself, that is the word I use. I don’t care about that class guide you read for some video game, or the rewrite of that hospital’s web page, nor those news articles I submitted. I want the world to know I make stories, and should very much love the “Author” side of my writing overshadow the “writer” side of it some day.

So, Mr. Jacques, whatever eternal space you now rest in, I don’t know how you’d feel about a cynical, sarcastic goth girl carrying on your song, but I do. I will carry it for the rest of my life.