Mary Elizabeth Summer
Author Love Letter
It starts like every good literary love story – with someone looking for that one book that will lift them out of their life and into another world. One as real as this one.
They pick up your book. They spend a moment gazing at the cover, thinking about the adventure they’re about to embark on. Then they open it.
From that breath-catching first word, that first glimpse into your world, they know they’ve entered a liminal space.
A place where things aren’t easily seen. Where exploring the shapes hovering around the edges of your consciousness isn’t just possible, but necessary.
They step forward, walking a winding cobblestone path into a magnificent forest, where the ancient trees whisper secrets, and just beyond the fizz and bubble of a modern city calls them further on, to intrigue and a sense of awe.
Where nothing is as it seems ...
You write for people who never want to be bored. A journey into your world is an adventure into an unexpected land where nothing is quite as it seems. You invite your readers to look from a new angle, grab that magic looking glass and see what it reflects, watch the stars through a telescope and see what secrets they hide.
Here the untrodden path could lead to the heart of a mystery, and the character who looked sure to be a villain could be the kindest of them all. Your reader finds themselves in the company of characters who subvert their expectations, and leave them feeling freer, too.
This is a land where a con artist can care about people, an assassin can fall in love, a warm-hearted boy can be ruthless and the intimidating professor can turn into a wise guide.
You free your readers by freeing your characters
The quest for freedom is a core theme in your work. From self-imposed cages to external limitations, from self-inflicted shame to society-inflicted taboos, your characters find the edges of their prisons, and the freedom that lies beyond. Whether they’re facing society’s prejudices, finding the joy of expressing their true queer selves, finding their place in their family, or asking what it means to be a good person, they’re always growing. Always exploring and redefining.
And you give your readers space and freedom to redefine right along with them.
A world far beyond the ordinary, where mysteries are allowed, appreciated, and welcomed
You don’t write for people who need every last mystery tied in a neat bow and put back in its box. You write for people who appreciate the unexplainable. Who know that sometimes that figure in the corner is just a dressing gown falling in shadow, but sometimes an otherworldly presence, sent to guide them. People who can meet the inexplicable with a laugh and a shake of the head, thrilling to the wonder of knowing the world is stranger than we let it be.
You write to show people that can embrace the ambiguity. That eventually they’ll figure it out if they just keep going. That if they want something to exist in the world, they can make it exist.
All roads lead to a roaring fire and a warm blanket
You weave nurturing throughout the mysteries. No matter how exciting, chaotic, painful, even terrifying a book gets, your readers know they’re safe. That there’ll always be a satisfying resolution and the characters they care about will be in a better place at the end than they were at the beginning.
No matter how many pitfalls and minotaurs along the way, your readers end your story in a cozy castle, wrapped in a blanket beside a roaring fire.
Finding the joy of the liminal
You write for people who are willing to be swept away by the story. Who want to fall in love with strange and unusual characters, and follow where they lead.
Your books invite readers into a world where they’re seen, and understood, and can start the journey to ultimately being ok with their own unexpectedness, their own liminal spaces.
Your readers never feel the same when they arrive at the end of your stories, as they did when they started. They feel a little wilder, a little weirder, and more able to expand into and love their own strangeness.
You show them that if they seek truth, they can find it, and if they need answers they can call them in like a homing beacon. You reassure them that nothing is insurmountable, that love is a blazing, clarifying presence, and that no matter how lost all seems, there’s always another way.
You know that exploring your own uncharted spaces is the only way to personal freedom.
With your book in their hands, your readers are equipped to explore their own unexpectedness for a richer, and fuller, life.
Imagine seeing a letter like this, written just for you?
You deserve that level of clarity, confidence, and pure enthusiasm for your work. And it’s just a breath away. Ready to see yourself like never before?