DragonLance Story as told by Tracey Hickman
(Transcript posted with permission from Margaret Weis)
Hi. I want to tell
you a story. Twenty-five years ago, Margaret and I saw our first book
published. And, golly, it worked out. So they said they’d let us write another
one. And so we did.
We wrote Dragons of
Winter Night. And it was a labor of love for us, but as we were working through
this, we knew something terrible was coming. We knew that the death of Sturm
was coming. And sure enough, it finally came to the point to write that. And
Margaret could not see the screen for the tears that she wept as she put the
words down. And she still gets teary-eyed when she thinks of Sturm.
The book was printed
and the book went out. And for us, the story had been told. But that wonderful
way that books have of taking their incredible reality into other people’s
lives took place.
And there was a young
boy who was shy, and who found that book and read it. The years went by, the
stories rolled on, the books came and went.
And Margaret and I
went, as we were wont to do from time to time, on a book tour. This was a
particularly important book tour for us because this book tour took us to
Washington State, more particularly to Fort Lewis. And we went to the PX in
Fort Lewis, and the director of the PX in Fort Lewis took us aside in his
office and said to us, “You must understand, this is not the same as other book
signings that you have done. The men that you are meeting here, who are waiting
in line for you, many of them are about to go overseas. Some of them you meet today will not be
coming back. Wives and children who have come here to have their book signed
are anxiously awaiting the return of husbands and wives. This is not another
book signing.”
So, off we went. We
sat down behind the table at Fort Lewis. And you get into…as authors, you very
often get into a routine. Margaret and I both very much appreciate you, and we
know that you don’t have very much time with us when you come through the line.
And we know that you need to have that moment, that you’ve had some experience
with this book and that you need to share it. We reach across the table and we
take the book, we smile and we ask you your name, we sign the book.
But this one time, I
reached across the table and I took this dog-eared collector’s edition of
Chronicles from the hand of a young man who was in a wheelchair. And he said to
me across the table, to both of us across the table, “This book has been with
me 100 feet under the ocean. This book has jumped with me. This book was with
me in Afghanistan.” This was the young boy who had read this book.
Then he said to us,
“I was in Afghanistan and I got shot at one point.” The bullet struck him in
the base of his back and shattered his spine. And he fell. And the thought that
came to him in that moment was, “What would Sturm do?”
And this young
warrior took those words that we had written and turned them into great action.
With his broken back, he stood up, he warned his squad, and as he said to us
across the table, this probably saved twelve men’s lives that day.
Then he reached
across the table, and he pushed towards us his purple heart and his bronze
star. I look at those every day. It reminds me that what we write is important.
But more than that, those who read it, you, who take these words and these
dreams of ours, make them part of your lives and turn them into great acts,
large or small…that is why we write. And that is why we have loved you, and
still love you, for twenty-five years. Thank you.