Sara Alexandra

“Consider the author. Living or dead, they have all done the same thing: laid down word after word, making a story. They have many ways of doing it. Some create a story as though they are knitting a scarf. One stitch is made from the last. Quietly, slowly, through work and patience, a book – a scarf – grows. Some authors create their stories in a frenzy of activity, short and sharp and frantic, as though they and their idea are lovers reunited. Some treat their work with caution, and do not so much write as listen, sometimes for years, for whispers and words to set down. Some authors begin with a blueprint they have laboured over; others are chasing a thought or a feeling down on to the page; others yet write while hoping to excise the thing that squats in their belly and makes them separate to everyone else, however hard they try to fit in. There are authors who write for a ravenous, waiting public, and authors who put down word after word with no expectation that their work will ever be seen by someone else. The result is the same. There is a book in your hand. Behind it – maybe centuries behind it – stands an author. When you read their first sentence, you are completing their work. Not all authors care about readers. Some of them write for the good of their own souls, and some of them, for all of their vivid imaginings, could never see their work being published. But for others, many others, your gaze on the page of words they have written is the manifestation of a dream. Thank you.”
― Stephanie Butland, Found in a Bookshop