Joel B. Reed

While many people think the characters in a novel reflect a clear image of those who bring them to life, this is not true. At least, it is not in my novels. These imaginary folk have lives of their own and they introduce themselves to me in the strangest ways. They have minds of their own, too, and their passions and desires and ways of looking at things are uniquely theirs. To me they are very much like my children in this way. And as with my children, there comes a time when I must stand aside, having done all I can, and with fear and trembling, release these intimate strangers to make their own way in the world.

Yet, just as the image of the parent can be seen in the child, these imaginary folk do reflect imperfect images of the one who brought them to life. While their opinions and tastes may or may not be similar to mine, they do reveal what I consider important enough to think through. Quite often this leads me to revise what I think, and sometimes to discard lifelong habits of thinking. This is often painful, but it is a gift for which I am deeply grateful.

This, in fact, is what I hope happens to my readers when they take up one of my novels. My hope is that they find themselves not only entertained, but also challenged to think of things in a new way. Through this, I hope they find new depths within themselves that they never knew were there. Above all, I hope they find the single thing which was left in Pandora's box after she opened it and released all the ills that afflict the world. That single thing is Hope.

So what about me? Like my favorite character, Jazz Phillips, I delight in chasing light and sometimes catching it. Like Jazz, I, too, find myself challenged by gravity and delight in paradox, irony, and frozen yogurt. The most wonderful irony about my writing is that I completed my first novel living, Hope, Arkansas, while I was going through one of the roughest periods of my life. The greatest paradox lies within the writing of my favorite novel, Lakota Spring, which is an American tragedy that ends ends in hope. And, of course, The Country's Best Yogurt, without doubt, comes from Arkansas.