As many of you long time readers know, I love Daniel Sheridan, and his creator,  Susan Dennard. There have been many authors that I’ve made connections with during my time of blogging, but few have been as influential as Susan. She was the first author to ever respond to my fan mail, and the first/only I would truly consider a friend. She has been such a wonderful influence for me during my time as a book reviewer, and a writer, so I wanted to write a little story of our progression, to celebrate out ‘four year friendiversary ‘(kind of, I’ll explain).

– August 10th, 2012: I bought Something Strange and Deadly for my birthday. I read it all that day in the car, and totally fell in love.
– August 18th, 2012: Susan and I start corresponding through tweets and emails! All of my dreams had come true.
– September 8th, 2012: I start working with Susan’s agent, to try and bring her for an author visit in my local town.
– May 10th, 2013 (FOUR YEARS AGO NEXT MONTH): Susan came and visited my local town, a LITERAL dream come true for me.

In between, and after, all of this, I blogged about her A RIDICULOUS AMOUNT. I am very surprised I was never turned in as a stalker, honestly. On the contrary, Susan was ridiculously courteous, and very kind to me. She wrote interviews, and filmed videos for my blog; she put me in the acknowledgements of her books, and even OFFICALLY made Daniel my book boyfriend. Susan went so far as to even Skype and chat with me about my publishing aspirations.

Unfortunately, as the years have pasted and Susan has become super mega famous (NYT BESTSELLERRRRRRR #proud), our correspondence has definitely slowed. I was able to see her last year, which was awesome! But contact is few and far between, as she has a lot to take care of, and a CRAZY number of fans now!

However, it still stands: Susan has been a ridiculously kind, and WONDERFUL influence to me over the years, and I will be forever grateful for the time and compassion she had for my dweeby, fangirl self. 🙂 I cannot recommend her work enough – happy friendiversary, Susan!

Aim for the Knees,

Maddie

(Some of my posts on Susan: 2012 Faves, 2013 Faves, DSL, SEA, and like EVERY PPL post I ever did.)