I remember as a kid my mother would read me stories before I went to bed at night. Usually the stories came from a volume of texts I called "the green books" because they were. It was a collection of books, all bound in dark green hardcover usually with wonderful illustrations of myths and fables gracing the front. The stories contained in the volumes changed with each volume, mimicking I suppose the progression of childhood into adulthood. That is volume one contained the kind of Mother Goose ryhmes and fables that held simple yet altogether entrancing rythms of sounds and words. Volume two contained Aesop's fables and small stories of fairies and mermen. Volume three and up contained more involved stories, like the Snow Queen," "The princess on the glass hill" and still one of my favorites, "The water babies."
I really wish I could remember what the complete collection of books was called, but I think the titles of each individual volume varied. Either way, those books were what first sparked a real interest for me in reading. It was condensed magic. When my mom read the stories it was like I was there, in those respective worlds walking through the chilled snow to the ice palace with Kay or galloping up the glass hill with "Boots" to impress the princess. When I was able to snatch the books away and read on my own, the illustrations of Jesse Wilcox that graced the pages and the artwork of others only served to strengthen the bond I would soon acquire with books in general. I graduated from that set of green tomes to other volumes, other genres and authors, leaving behind childhood fairytales for more modernized versions of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson. (Fiction after all, in one way or another, adheres to the old storytelling patterns of the fables of old.) But no matter what the titles or the stories, the magic remained the same. Each turn of the page yielded a new perspective of worlds that couldn't exist in any normal contraints of reality, but which, for a second in time at least, leaped to life under the roving eye of a hungry reader yearning for more.
When I first came online, I think it was freshman year of high school. I'd never really had or operated a computer before that, other than the meager typing lessons I'd recieved in junior high and playing those pioneer games for history class. (What was it called, the Old West or something? Where you had a caravan, a small family and you had to buy food...I forget the particulars. It was fun though.)
Little by little the online world opened up, revealing both an amazing potential for knowledge and interaction as well showing other more insidious sides. (Pop up spam was dangerous without a filter I realized.)
What I would later discover however was that the world of books and their own respective ability to create universes to roam in was not restricted to the damp smelling back corner of an old library or the bookshelves of Barnes and Noble. I remember casually entering the title of a favorite work of fiction into search and I came back with an array of forums. Those in turn led me down a rabbit hole where I discovered a new group of writers, unpublished, unknown but for all of that, as amazing and enthralling as the first fables in those aforementioned green books of my childhood.
Popular monikers from books I recognized sprung to new life under talented voices penning new stories for these beloved figures and in that way created a whole new way to experience the books I couldn't part with. After school, I'd rush home, much like an over enthusiastic child impatient to open a much coveted present on their birthday and plop in front of the computer, at that time a clunker I used to just call the "dinosaur" for its age and bulk. After the slow loading time and the familiar whistle and hiss of the dial up connecting, I'd navigate to those online pages and pretty much "phase out" letting myself be directed by the theatre of words so carefully plotted out onto the screen as if they were intended for a serious published work and not just for online viewers and fans to peruse. What struck me was the care that went into the craftmanship of their art. This was no carelessly put together endeavor. There was real thought behind each scenario and word. One could almost imagine the figures from the books werre actually sitting behind the screen at computers of their own,(hopefully not "dinosaurs") typing each word and interacting with us in ways their published versions could not. For a time, it felt appropriate to suspend that reality and succumb to the enchantment they weaved. Dangerous of itself, all enchantments come with a price, every fairytale will tell you that, but it was a small risk compared to the great and wonderful worlds that opened up each day.
A new drama, an unseen danger, a small spark of hilarity, all unfolding with new developments each time I checked the forum or journals.
I came to connect with some of these voices and discovered that the personas behind the personas were just as engaging and complex as their onscreen counterparts. It was all extremely inspirational for me. These were people who understood the subtle language of stories and were not at all hesitant to try and interpret that archaic tounge with accents of their own flavor and style, creating in the end passages of words that were as memorable and intoxicating as any Christian Anderson tale.
These were the online wordsmiths I surrounded myself with daily, nightly, going through the arduous connections of my "dinosaur" comp to see what they might have written this time. I took away lessons and perspectives from these wordsmiths that affected me personally and creatively. I gained a newfound fervor for writing which had waned somewhat after high school. Personal environments at home and in the family had been taxing any strength or endurance I had at all to pursue the things that interested me. There were definitely black periods where I saw things from a bleak vantage point. Those voices however, in their own individual and varied ways, coaxed me to continue on and embrace an art I dearly loved and which on many occasions lifted me from the bleak into something more fulfilling.
I really count those authors as my earliest teachers even as I count many of them now as personal friends.

The point I had wanted to make with all of this, is that there is an abundance of inspiration and talent apart from that which is found between the pages of any novel. Sometimes all it takes is the click of a mouse...
The people I encountered in those early days are some very talented individuals whom I believe really deserve recognition. You might read a few online fictions or passages that make you pause and say, "wow" and bookmark it so you maybe you can go back later and experience that heady rush of words all over again at another point in time. But I wonder if anyone really pauses to think about the person behind the words, the one who was able to draw that "wow" out of you. The unlauded authors behind the scenes as it were...
I think about them all the time. Whether I've conversed with them personally or just merely contented myself to read their words.

Now I wanted to take the time to say, "thank you."
Thank you for letting me be privy to your brand of magic, for giving me inspiration in certain areas of my life, for letting me relive those days when I first discovered worlds in books.
Thank you for being the theatre, the actors, the stage crew, the lighting set, the grip boys and stunt directors all in one.

Thank you for being the people you are behind the words on the screen.

A bunch of word weavers and worlds you should check out.

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Indulgent Red: [link]

(There are so many other unsung names and faces I remember that are no longer around, at least not in the online guises I used to navigate to. Believe me when I say there are whole floating islands of similiar talent out there just waiting to be read and explored. Those above are just a small fraction of the same islands I would (and still do)navigate to on a daily basis.)
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