Following is the keynote speech I gave at the San Diego Central Library Local Author Showcase event Friday evening, January 31. Several people told me they couldn’t hear me and wondered if I could post the talk. So here it is.

Thank you … I am so glad to be here and honored to be invited to speak tonight. To paraphrase what my friend Jim Moreno says, it is always an honor to be a writer among writers.

Thank you, Misty Jones, Library Director, who leads the way and sets the pace for all the great programs at libraries throughout the city that help make San Diego the culturally rich and diverse city we are.

How great is it, that not only does the Library sponsor the Local Authors program, but on the 50^th anniversary of the program, they inaugurated the Little Local Authors Showcase for writers 11 years and younger. Then came the Teen Local Authors Showcase for youth 12-18. These programs are another illustration of our Library’s commitment to encourage writers and writing and celebrate and share literature.

All of these programs are supported and sponsored by the Friends of the San Diego Central Library, a nonprofit organization that does such great work connecting readers and writers and shining a spotlight on Local Authors. If you’re not a member of the Friends of the San Diego Central Library, tonight is a chance for you to thank them for their support by joining.

Thank you, Linda Brawley, chief wrangler of the Local Authors Showcase and one of the liveliest and most energetic librarians I’ve ever known. As Linda reminded us, the Local Authors Showcase is sharing its 54^th anniversary along with another great tradition: The Super Bowl is also in its 54^th year. Well, I say we are the Super Bowl of Books and Literature. The Super Bowl of Stories! A Super Bowl in which everyone is a winner.

By the way, I was thrilled to read a recent report that showed more Americans went to the library than to the movies last year. In fact, we went to the library more than we went to any cultural events or live sporting events. Take that, Super Bowl!

I also want to thank my friend and much­-loved librarian and cultural hero, Marc Chery, Supervisor of the Humanities Section of Central Library. Marc is a creative and staunch supporter of local writers and artists.

Thanks to all the authors who submitted their books for this 54^th Annual Local Authors Showcase. Wait—more than thanks for submitting your books—I want to say, and I know Misty and Linda and Marc will join me in saying a huge and hearty thank you for writing your books. Each one of you. Thank you for contributing to the world of literature. Thank you for sharing your stories and your ideas and your genius and your plain hard work with us and with the world.

I don’t know about you, but to me, a blank piece of paper is one of the scariest things in the world. Especially if it’s the first thing I see in the morning before I have a cup of coffee, or if it’s the thing that stares me down when a deadline looms.

Sydney Sheldon, author of eighteen novels, a bunch of films, some TV shows, and a couple of musicals, said, “A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it is to be God.”

To be a writer is a courageous thing, I say, to face every day, that blank piece of paper, or, more often these days, that blank screen with its blinking cursor—oh that blinking cursor! There you are—alone and alone—facing that blank page, that blinking cursor.

But you did it. You took that blank piece of paper and you filled it up. You moved that cursor along first one empty screen and then another. Maybe you began with all the wrong words, more than a few clunky, misshapen sentences, some half-baked ideas, a four or five failed plots… but then you crossed out those wrong words and found the right ones, and you took those clunky sentences and reshaped them and made them beautiful. One half-baked idea led to another and to another that was a little more solid, and then to another, better yet, and finally, voila!  the great idea you knew all along, but just couldn’t get to until you went through all those other ideas. Stones along the path. A thousand words to get a hundred.

You did this again and again and again, day after day after week after month and maybe, like me, year after year. You numbered your drafts because that’s what we have to do to keep track of them. 3, 5, 10, 15, 37…

In an interview for The Paris Review, George Plimpton asked Ernest Hemingway why he had to rewrite the ending of A Farewell to Arms 39 times. Hemingway answered in that clean and clear way he had: “Because I couldn’t get the words right.”

It takes courage to be a writer, and stamina! It’s not true that all you have to do to be a writer is to sit down at your typewriter and open a vein. Oh, were it that romantic.

Harlan Ellison said, “Anyone can be a writer, the trick is staying a writer.” You know that, you authors of books spotlighted in the Local Authors Showcase. You stayed with it. You had the courage and the stamina. You finally got the words right. And in there … under those bright lights, exhibited for all to see, is your reward.

I hope you enjoy your reward. I hope you enjoy the hell out of it. Because the other thing most of us know as writers, is that we’ll never get rich doing this thing we do day after day.

A writer friend once told me, “You know, Judy, you’ll never make any money as a poet.” Well, he was right. I never have made any money as a poet, but that doesn’t stop me from writing poems. And I never made any money as a short-story writer, or a playwright, or a novelist, or a nonfiction writer either. Now I’m writing a memoir and believe me, after all these years, I know by now, I’m not in this for the money.

So why then? Why do we do this thing we do, alone and alone, in our cramped studio or dank garret — seriously, do any of you have a garret? We’re at our kitchen table or in that extra bedroom we have to abandon when guests come. Maybe we come here to this beautiful library or one of the other libraries in our neighborhood. Or we have our usual table at our usual café where they know us and know our drink and commiserate with us because maybe they, too, have their dreams and their ambition and their drive to be creative.

I’ve told this story a hundred times, many of you have probably heard it. And I don’t know whether it’s the truth or whether I made it up. But this is what I tell:

When I was a little girl, my grandmother told me that when we’re born, god puts a great big thumb right in the middle of your forehead—right here where your third eye is—and imprints you with a gift.

“You,” god’s thumbprint says, “you’re going to be a dancer, and you, you’re going to be a baker and you, you’re going to be a teacher, a librarian, a potter, a painter, a maker of portraits.” And you… all of you… you’ve been given the gift of being a writer. You are the storytellers, you are the historians, you are the truth-tellers and the world-builders.

You write books for children that will enchant them and inspire them. You write books that keep us up at night until we find out “whodunit.” Whether the boy will get the girl or the girl will get the boy or the boy will get the boy or the girl the girl or the king his kingdom, the wizard his magic, the killer his due. You give us stories of others’ lives, so we can walk in their shoes for just that long and maybe come to be more compassionate. You write history so we won’t forget. This is your gift.

But that’s not all my grandmother told me. She said, “It’s true. Each one of us is given a gift, and with the gift comes the responsibility to use it. Use your gift,” she said, “use it with generosity, and grace, and gratitude and you will make the world a better place.”

This is what each of you have done by writing your book, staying with it however long it took, and giving it to the world, and to us. I say Thank you. We all say Thank you.

On display …  in there … are copies of the 260 books that were submitted to this 54^th edition of the Local Authors Showcase. And what a beautiful sight they are. Go and find yours. Take a selfie with it and post it on social media. Send a copy to your mother, to your grandmother—she’d be so proud. Send a copy to your grandchild, too, let her know about this gift you’ve given to the world, and tell her she’s been given a special gift, too.

Celebrate yourself and celebrate your fellow authors. Enjoy this evening. And when you get up tomorrow morning, look at yourself in the mirror and say, “Good morning, beautiful writer.”

Then go get your coffee, sit yourself down at your desk, and get to work on the next one.

Thank you and have a great evening.