It's been becoming more and more obvious to me that writing, and especially writing science fiction and fantasy, is the best way to open young minds to new ideas, the meaning of life, and to convey the importance of protecting the planet we live on and creating a livable future for all. Speculative fiction, as it's called in the 'biz, gives all people but especially young people, a chance to imagine 'what if' and to explore beyond the boundaries of the known. It is through such exploration that we dream and invent and make something more inspiring of ourselves, and escape beyond the confines of current expression and conventions to realize our own potential. I was thinking about this when I found the following letter, drafted circa 2006. A bit childish, simple, but my sentiments have not changed and neither has the overwhelming message that fiction is what feeds my passion. I have a habit of writing to authors as I finish a book, my mind afire. Maybe only the last sentence is worthwhile, but for context, here is the letter I wrote:

To: Diana Wynne Jones, on the subject of The Merlin Conspiracy, a thoroughly excellent book.
This was fabulous. I must say the cover art had me quite skeptical at first. But I opened the book and immediately was plunged into an intricately, vividly entertaining story, that was both amusing and profound. With each page, a new layer was added, the whole piece weaving itself together into a delicate, delicious and exotic tapestry, like the people in the canyon world.
I enjoyed most of all Nick, Romanov, and Maxwell Hyde, the latter two for having real power and enticing complexity, and the former for not having either quality. Nick seemed so genuinely a teenage kid, with absolutely no clue what was going on, but who wanted to do something important. To have a grand adventure sprung upon such a character rings true for me. I feel sometimes that school, homework and worrying about college and test scores are just fillers, things to take up time until one day I'll just take a step sideways and find myself plunging into my real life, which will of course be full of adventure and excitement. There's got to be more to life than existing and consuming, even soaking in knowledge has begun to seem pointless and anticlimactic.
I enjoyed the very British flavor of your story. British lore can't help but have something of chivalry and King Arthur, of Stonehenge. There is a connectedness with the land, history, something archaic, something greater, that you just don't get in America. Your whole country is steeped in history and myth and magic; everyone just breathes it in I think, and the resulting works are refreshing to those surrounded by raw commercialism daily.
Thank you. I'm sure you get fanmail, but I wonder how much genuine appreciation and admiration actually gets through to fantastic authors. Definitely not enough. Thank you for a moment, a point in time, one page, when the world was still, and time held its breath, and the universe fit inside a book, and a book was a wealth of universes.