With Thanksgiving coming up this week, we thought it would be fun to find out what some of our favorite authors are thankful for this year, so we headed out to Twitter and asked them to let us know! We are thrilled with the responses we got and have collected them all for you here. And of course, feel free to let us know what you are thankful for in the comments!
Charlie Jane Anders
Author of All the Birds in the Sky, The City in the Middle of the Night, & more
I am thankful for my community and for all the people who support each other and encourage each other to create better stories. I feel like my fellow writers and readers are giving me hope for the future and helping me to see all the great worlds we could be discovering.
Rajeev Balasubramanyam
Author of Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss & more
I am most thankful to be living in interesting times. What more could any novelist wish for?
Kimberly Belle
Author of Dear Wife, The Marriage Lie, & more
As cliche as it sounds, what I’m most thankful for this Thanksgiving is three whole days with my family. We are spread across five states and two continents, and it’s not often that we manage to get everyone to the same place at the same time. We’ll be at my parents’, crammed into a house where there’s not enough beds or hot water, where we’ll have to stand in line for the bathroom and fight for the favorite comfy chair, and I will cherish every loud, crowded, crazy second with my people.
Laura Benedict
Author of The Stranger Inside, Bliss House, & more
I’m most thankful for the lives of children everywhere, and the hope for the future those lives hold.
Sarah Blake
Author of Naamah, Mr. West, & more
I’m most thankful for my family and friends. For television shows and movies. For comedy. For art and museums. For my writer friends that send me amazing things they’ve written. For the friends I’ve made because of Naamah’s publication. For any joy I’ve been lucky enough to have this year.
Blake Crouch
Author of Recursion, Dark Matter, Pines, & more
I’m thankful for my wildly smart readers.
Fiona Davis
Author of The Dollhouse, The Address, The Masterpiece, & more
I’m grateful for all the wonderful book bloggers and bookstagrammers who connect authors and readers day after day. Their efforts are truly invaluable.
Rachel Howzell Hall
Author of They All Fall Down, Land of Shadows, & more
I’m thankful for the opportunity to share stories with readers and that I’m someone who’d get asked this. I’m thankful for family who put up with book events, piles of books and legal pads and pens everywhere… and I am thankful that they still love me for me.
Ibram X. Kendi
Historian at American University and author of Stamped from the Beginning & How to be an Antiracist
After my cancer battle last year, I am most thankful for my health, the health of my family, the health of our antiracist struggle, and the health of human resistance to all forms of tyranny in the United States and abroad.
Christina Lauren
Pen name of duo Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings, authors of Beautiful Bastard, The Unhoneymooners, Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating, & more
We are endlessly grateful to the librarians and booksellers out there who read and champion the books they love, especially those who are vocal and champion the ‘feel-good’ genres! Reading is reading! Thank you for all that you do!
Claire Lombardo
Author of The Most Fun We Ever Had
I’m most thankful for the exasperating delight that is family (of origin, choosing, or both!) and also for stories–namely, their ability to transport us to different worlds.
Adrian McKinty
Author of The Chain, The Cold Cold Ground, & more
Health of my family & friends above all. Life is a war on a thousand fronts against entropy, death & decay. Glad to still be in the fight against evil & against death. You’re going to go down, but it’s better to go down swinging.
Lauren Mechling
Author of How Could She
Earlier this month my grandmother (or my “Bubbie” as I called her) passed away at the age of 99. She was a glorious, generous, stylish pistol of a woman, and I’ve been basking in gratitude ever since.
Julia Phillips
Author of Disappearing Earth
I’m thankful this year for all the people in this world, friends, family, and strangers, who are trying to do good for others. There can be such generosity and beauty in humans. I’m thankful for proof of that every day.
Regina Porter
Author of The Travelers
I am thankful that my mother is still alive and was able to see my book and hold it in her hands and have my brother read it to her at night. She is blind. I am thankful for my friends and family and a sense of humor that buoys me when life gets rough. I am thankful for my daughters and when I look at them I say a silent prayer that they will help make this world a better place. I am thankful for this world and all the people in it, even the ones who would wish me harm. They are reminders that I have a choice when I move through this world. I am thankful for people in general and thankful for the solitude I sometimes need to better appreciate what it means to be human.
Francesca Serritella
Author of Ghosts of Harvard due 5/20, and co-author with Lisa Scottoline of Does This Beach Make Me Look Fat? & more
As I gear up to have my debut novel, Ghosts of Harvard, published this May, I’m so thankful for everyone who has read and supported the humorous memoir series I write with my mother, Lisa Scottoline. We received such wonderful support from our readers, many of whom are mothers and daughters like us, booksellers, and especially librarians who helped our little series last and grow over ten years and nine books! And all along the way, you encouraged me in my own dream of writing this novel. It is because of you that I had the courage and opportunity to get it published, and I will be forever thankful!
Chuck Wendig
Author of Wanderers, Star Wars: Aftermath, Blackbirds, Zer0es, & more
It’s glib to say, but I’m thankful for books, and writers, and bookstores, and libraries, and great editors and above all else, readers. We are in a feasting age of good reads.
Cover photo by Alexander Sinn on Unsplash.