An Algerian friend of mine studying American civilization in France just emailed me and asked me if I knew how to contact Gore Vidal because he wanted to send him a letter (he wrote his masters thesis on Vidal’s Burr).
I don’t know how one goes about contacting famous writers, though I’ve thought about it before. Do you just send it to his publisher (Random House)? How does that work?
Send to publisher>publisher forwards mail to Gorevee>mail sits in pile in Gorevee’s home
Your friend gets a response from GoreVee sometime before Gorevee dies (which is scheduled for next Thursday, I believe) or not. The odds are heavily on “not.”
Sorry.
I have contacted a couple of writers through their publisher’s and have received responses.
Sometimes, reference works list a home address instead of “c/o publisher” but I’m not sure that’s much better. Still sits in a pile.
Racer72: some authors do respond to fan mail, especially if they don’t get a whole lot. I can’t imagine Vidal getting fewer than hundreds of pieces of mail from total strangers per year, and I can’t imagine him deciding to respond to it as terribly important.
Most authors are happy to respond to fan man, but then most authors are lucky to get one or two letters a year (I’ve had two in my writing career).
However, a popular author like Vidal would get many more. He is probably not set up to answer them all, but will answer if something makes them stand out. Possibly writing the master’s thesis would fit into that category.
But it’s certainly worth your friend’s time to try to write to him.
He’s 83 I wonder what kind of health he’s in. Burr is a great novel.
Like I said, he’s got until next Thursday. He’s looked every bit of 83 in the last few interviews I’ve seen. BURR is outstanding, one of the best historical novels I’ve ever read–I teach it in my course on NYC history, and it realy gives a great overview of the period and the city, too.
Don’t forget, Vidal engaged in a lively correspondence with Timothy McVeigh. so he must look at some of the stuff that comes in.
John, a friend of mine, bumped into GV a few months ago in a NYC bar, approached him politely and thanked him for writing so many great historical novels. FWIW, John said he looked like death warmed over, and was kinda grumpy, too.
There are live (???) interviews of him on Youtube. He’s lively, and cranky, and old as dirt. Wheelchair bound, IIRC, and looks fairly frail.