Dear Andrew Ladd,
Hi there. Sorry it's beenawhile. I've been pretty busy, I guess; I moved to London; I published my book in the U.K. (to some greatreviews, incidentally); and I got shortlisted for the New York Public Library's Young Lions fiction award. If you'll pardon the hubris, it's been a pretty great year.
But anyway. I gather, as always, from my Google Alerts, that you've been busy too. You've signed some pucks. You've scored a lot of goals. You've been called for a lot of fouls. And last week, I notice, you visited a school to promote the Winnipeg Jets' children's book, The Home Team, as part of "I Love To Read Month."
Now look here, Andrew Ladd. Getting kids excited about reading is great. I'm on board with that. Kids who get excited about reading today are my meal ticket tomorrow. But dude, COME ON. It's already hard enough for me to get noticed as an author above the constant flood of news about you and your already very successful hockey career. (And now I have this jackass to contend with as well.)
So why did you have to go and start attaching yourself to books and plugging them in libraries, too? You don't catch me slapping pucks around the ice for the cameras, do you? That's your thing, and I respect you for it. So is it really too much to ask that you extend me the same courtesy?
I guess I wouldn't be so cheesed off about this, Andrew Ladd, if you hadn't so studiously ignored my book all these months. After I tried tweeting you about it, and I wrote you all these open letters, and then tweets about ME started accidentally showing up in sports website feeds about YOU, I figured you would have to be just a little bit interested. We may not have met, may never meet, and sharing a name may not mean all that much to either of us. But it's SOMETHING, right? It's a reason to at least say, hey, millions of people who hang on my every word and step, check out this book by this other Andrew Ladd. Maybe it doesn't suck.
When still I didn't hear a peep, though, I resigned myself to the thought that, okay, maybe he just care about books all that much. And now I find out that all this time you've been holding out on me? That you've got no qualms about promoting other people's books in public forums, and yet you can't even throw me one fricking bone?
Anyway, Andrew Ladd. It's still "I Love To Read Month," after all, so maybe it's not too late. Maybe now, just once, just a little, you can tell your adult fans to check out my book. And if not, well, shucks. I guess I'll just have to dig out those ice skates and come down to the MTS Centre after all, and see how YOU like it.
Yours, despite everything, in homonymery.
Andrew Ladd
Hi there. Sorry it's beenawhile. I've been pretty busy, I guess; I moved to London; I published my book in the U.K. (to some greatreviews, incidentally); and I got shortlisted for the New York Public Library's Young Lions fiction award. If you'll pardon the hubris, it's been a pretty great year.
But anyway. I gather, as always, from my Google Alerts, that you've been busy too. You've signed some pucks. You've scored a lot of goals. You've been called for a lot of fouls. And last week, I notice, you visited a school to promote the Winnipeg Jets' children's book, The Home Team, as part of "I Love To Read Month."
Now look here, Andrew Ladd. Getting kids excited about reading is great. I'm on board with that. Kids who get excited about reading today are my meal ticket tomorrow. But dude, COME ON. It's already hard enough for me to get noticed as an author above the constant flood of news about you and your already very successful hockey career. (And now I have this jackass to contend with as well.)
So why did you have to go and start attaching yourself to books and plugging them in libraries, too? You don't catch me slapping pucks around the ice for the cameras, do you? That's your thing, and I respect you for it. So is it really too much to ask that you extend me the same courtesy?
I guess I wouldn't be so cheesed off about this, Andrew Ladd, if you hadn't so studiously ignored my book all these months. After I tried tweeting you about it, and I wrote you all these open letters, and then tweets about ME started accidentally showing up in sports website feeds about YOU, I figured you would have to be just a little bit interested. We may not have met, may never meet, and sharing a name may not mean all that much to either of us. But it's SOMETHING, right? It's a reason to at least say, hey, millions of people who hang on my every word and step, check out this book by this other Andrew Ladd. Maybe it doesn't suck.
When still I didn't hear a peep, though, I resigned myself to the thought that, okay, maybe he just care about books all that much. And now I find out that all this time you've been holding out on me? That you've got no qualms about promoting other people's books in public forums, and yet you can't even throw me one fricking bone?
Anyway, Andrew Ladd. It's still "I Love To Read Month," after all, so maybe it's not too late. Maybe now, just once, just a little, you can tell your adult fans to check out my book. And if not, well, shucks. I guess I'll just have to dig out those ice skates and come down to the MTS Centre after all, and see how YOU like it.
Yours, despite everything, in homonymery.
Andrew Ladd