Home Appearances Blog Keynotes About Rob Press Kit Email Rob sawyer@sfwriter.com Order Books Autographed Copies How to Write Canadian SF Short Stories Anthologies Nonfiction Futurism NOVELS: Wake Watch Wonder FlashForward Rollback Mindscan Calculating God Factoring Humanity Illegal Alien Frameshift Starplex Terminal Experiment End of an Era Golden Fleece Neanderthals: Hominids Humans Hybrids Quintaglios: Far-Seer Fossil Hunter Foreigner Blog Facebook Twitter Group Home

Hugo Award-Winning Science Fiction Writer  ROBERT J. SAWYER  Author of WWW:Wake and FlashForward SFWRITER.COM > Short Stories > "Lost in the Mail" > Writing . . .   Writing "Lost in the Mail"     by Robert J. Sawyer   Copyright © 1996 by Robert J. Sawyer All Rights Reserved. "Lost in the Mail" is a very special story to me. It's not autobiographical — although I can see how people giving it a cursory read might think that it is. Like Jacob Coin, I used to want to become a paleontologist. And, like him, I spent many years as a non-fiction writer. But Jacob is a sad man, and I am not. He decided not to pursue his dream, and instead settled into an uninteresting, uneventful life. Me, I did go after one of my dreams — being an SF writer. So, although Jacob isn't me, he is what I might have ended up being in another reality — and, of course, turning points and alternative realities are precisely what "Lost in the Mail" is about. I'm very pleased — and, frankly, a little surprised — that such a quiet, introspective, personal story has struck a responsive chord with so many people.   More Good Reading   Writing "The Shoulders of Giants" Writing "You See But You Do Not Observe" Writing The Quintaglio Ascension trilogy Writing The Terminal Experiment Writing Starplex Writing Frameshift Writing Illegal Alien Writing FlashForward Writing Calculating God

Home	Novels	About Rob	For Book Clubs	Blog
Search	Short Stories	Press Kit	How to Write	Facebook
Buy Books	Nonfiction	E-mail Rob	Canadian SF	Twitter