In 1989, a young girl read The BFG by Roald Dahl. Inspired by the book, she sent Dahl a bottle full of colored water, oil, and glitter--a dream in a bottle. Here was his charming reply:
Dahl was infamous for sometimes being very difficult, but at least on this occasion he got things exactly right.

(H/t Mental Floss via @cinnamon_carter)
 
Picture

The caption is a little hard to read in this photo, but it says, "Alan Moore: Writer/Wizard/Mall Santa/Rasputin Impersonator". I wonder what caption they will put under my name if I ever get interviewed by BBC.
(H/t Fishbowl DC)
 
Trish Vickers of Dorset, England, lost her eyesight because of diabetes seven years ago. Since she lives alone, she decided to write a novel to keep from going crazy. Her idea was that she would write the novel out in a notebook in longhand, using rubber bands as guidelines. Then someone would come at the end of the week and type out her work.

This plan developed a hitch, however, when her pen ran out of ink. She wrote twenty-six pages of text, without realizing that no marks had been left on the page.

With nowhere else to turn, she decided to call the police. The Telegraph picks up the story from here:

Forensic experts worked in their spare time to read the indentations left on the A4 pages using a system of lights.
It took five months of painstaking work, but the forensic team was able to recover the whole text - and they said how much they had enjoyed it and couldn't wait for the rest.
A Dorset police spokesman said a member of staff had completed the work during her lunch hours.


Can you imagine what would have happened if she had called 911 in the States with a problem like this?
 
This has to be the inspirational story of the day:

"96-year-old novelist Herman Wouk has sold his latest novel to Simon & Schuster. The Lawgiver follows the production of a movie about Moses through “letters, memos, emails, journals, news articles, recorded talk, tweets, Skype transcripts, and text messages” sent between characters. Publication is set for the fall. Wouk is the author of The Caine Mutiny, Marjorie Morningstar and The Winds of War."

I can only hope that I will live to be 96, and that I will still be writing--and in my right mind--by then.