Dear Librarians: A Letter from Rosey Lee, Author of A Gardin Wedding
I’m going to tell you something that I don’t often discuss. I skipped a year of high school, so most of my classmates assumed my nose was always in a book. But that couldn’t have been further from the truth. I rarely read books for fun during that period of my life, but I practically lived in my high school library.
If you grew up during the 90s, you may remember when schools across the country added Channel One News to their morning announcement routine. When our school jumped on the bandwagon, I enthusiastically volunteered to operate the video camera during the time in which each school had a few minutes for its own opening broadcast. Since we used an empty office in the library for the studio, our school librarian became my de facto homeroom teacher. After a few weeks, I felt so comfortable in the library that I spent all of my free time on campus there. I felt like I finally had a safe place at my new school, which softened the blow of both my bumpy transition and the weight of a health crisis my family silently endured.
The library was my haven when I didn’t realize I was at such high risk for falling apart. It’s where teen magazines offered temporary distraction from the worry I shouldered as the eldest daughter in a Black Southern family. It’s where I tore through Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges before school and during lunchtime in search of premed programs when I felt forced to change my career focus to medicine after my parents finally confessed that they wouldn’t allow me to fulfil my dream of studying fashion design and acting in New York City after graduating from high school at 16 years old.
As I wrote my upcoming novel, A Gardin Wedding, I didn’t plan for two pivotal scenes to take place in libraries. If you’d asked me then, I’d have said that libraries made sense as the venue because it’s common for individuals and community groups to request meeting space at the library. And I’d have added that librarians frequently collaborate with professionals in other sectors to meet community needs. But maybe there’s more to it. What if I needed to place Martha Gardin, my main character, in a setting where I felt safe so that I could write a character who becomes vulnerable enough to face the challenges she’d previously avoided?
A Gardin Wedding allows readers to take an emotional journey with Martha—one where she drops her tough exterior and heals the hurt inside. While this heartwarming family and friendship drama with romantic elements is the second book in my Gardins of Edin series, it can also stand alone. I welcome readers who are familiar with the Gardin family because they enjoyed The Gardins of Edin as well as those who haven’t read it yet.
Rosey Lee is a pen name. I like to say that my “alter ego” is a physician. My commitment to empowering people with health information carries over to my creative life through the health themes in my stories. A Gardin Wedding highlights mental health, the connection between high blood pressure and dementia, and couple’s counseling. And because my “alter ego” works in community health, I know firsthand that it’s frequently easier for people to relate to physicians in community settings than it is in a hospital or doctor’s office. So, Martha, who is a physician, partners with a local library for a talk about high blood pressure, where she demonstrates how to use a blood pressure monitor, highlights the library’s blood pressure monitor lending program, and later joins the library patrons and staff on a community walk. I won’t spoil what happens at the events. I’ll only say that the attendees aren’t the only ones to learn something there. (Hint: Martha may have learned a little something too.)
I see libraries as places where life happens. Thank you for making them nurturing ground for people like me and Martha to grow.
With heartfelt thanks,
Rosey Lee
