Scott Westerfeld Answered Me - and Why Twitter Brings People Closer Together

I'm a bit behind writing this post and I'm going to blame all the travel. Indiana (ugh) followed closely by Texas (awesome).

While I was bored out of my mind in Indiana and sad because my rental car had been towed the night before and then I got stood up for a professional lunch (which later turned out to just be a misunderstanding, but at THIS point, I thought I couldn't even complete my ONE GOAL in traveling to Indiana and so I was feeling pretty sorry for myself). So, I took to Twitter. I take to Twitter a lot while I'm traveling.

Scott Westerfeld had tweeted that he was doing a book signing in San Francisco.

Since I was feeling really sorry for myself, and wishing I was anywhere but Indiana, I decided to reply.

And then he answered me!

I was pretty excited. I've tweeted at several authors, Meg Cabot for one. I've even tweeted furiously at Levar Burton. But - Scott Westerfeld was the first to answer me. The Uglies series is one of my favorite YA/Teen series as evidenced by this photo:

Where I proudly rock my "I'm an Ugly" t-shirt and shock little old ladies into shouting - "Why would you wear a shirt like that!?" So you can imagine the sort of dance I did when I saw this wonderful author's response to sad and dejected tweet.

I know everyone is really terrified of everything digital these days. It's the death of the book, which I really don't think it is. It's the death of communication - which. I think I communicate MORE with people from all over than I ever did when there was just a telephone, or handwritten letters. Because I hate the phone and handwritten letters are awesome and romantic before they get tedious and boring. And what is better than the ability to connect and communicate with your favorite authors?

Looking at Mr. Westerfeld's account, I can see that he very often responds to fans. And I think that's pretty awesome of him to take the time to do that. I hope that he knows he's truly brightening people's days/evenings. And, by being so accessible, probably keeping all those social network junked up kids reading real books.

Do you use Twitter? Have you ever gotten a response from an author or an actor that really made your day?