Every once in a while, my inbox gives me an emotional crisis.
Recently, I received an email from John Grisham.
Yes. John Grisham.
For one very brief, very irrational second, my heart did that stupid little leap it does before the sensible part of my brain caught up.
And then, of course, reality had to be accepted.
John Grisham was not emailing me. It was spam. Obviously.
I did not open it, because apparently I have reached that deeply unfair stage of adulthood where I can be a writer with dreams and still have to possess basic cybersecurity awareness.
Still, I stared at the name for a few seconds.
John Grisham.
The name I’d fan-girled over for over 2 decades just sitting there in my inbox.
The funniest thing is that this has been happening quite often lately.
Colleen Hoover has apparently written to me. Mona Awad has made an appearance. Lucinda Berry has somehow found her way into my inbox too. And then there was Shari Lapena.
Now, Shari Lapena is one of my absolute favourite Canadian mystery authors, so that one was particularly cruel.
There is something horribly unfair about seeing the name of an author you genuinely love sitting in your inbox, feeling that tiny jolt of excitement, and then immediately having to remind yourself:
Heena. Be serious. This woman/man is not emailing you.
According to my spam folder, however, my literary career is going spectacularly well. Apparently, I am on excellent terms with bestselling authors across continents.
Reality, meanwhile, would like to remind me that somebody somewhere is probably hoping I will click a suspicious link and hand over my passwords.
Still, underneath the joke, there is something strangely tender about it if you really, and I mean really, think about it.
Because these are names I have known for years. Names I have seen on bookshelves, bestseller lists, airport displays, interviews, reviews, publishing news. Writers whose books I have bought, read, admired, recommended and, in some cases, absolutely devoured.
Writers whose careers can feel almost mythical when you are still building your own, sentence by sentence, book by book, year after year.
And then one morning, there is their name sitting inside your inbox.
Fake, yes.
Ridiculous, absolutely.
But there.
And I suppose there is a very specific category of madness that comes with being a writer, because instead of simply deleting the email and moving on, a tiny part of me thinks: Well… maybe one day.
Maybe one day it will not be spam.
Maybe one day one of those names will actually appear because of a real conversation, a book, an event, a collaboration, an introduction, or some completely unexpected turn in this strange writing life wjere they might actually read my book and love it.
Maybe one day I will look at an email from someone I have admired for years and not immediately think: Nice try, scammer.
There is something exceptionally funny about dreams in that way. They can be enormous, almost embarrassingly so, and yet sometimes all it takes to bring them back to the surface is one stupid email, courtesy of someone trying to steal your password.
So yes, I reported the email. Yes, I deleted it. and yes, I remain painfully aware that John Grisham, Colleen Hoover, Shari Lapena, Lucinda Berry and the rest of this apparently very exclusive literary circle probably have absolutely no idea who I am.
But for a few seconds, before I pressed delete, I let myself enjoy seeing those names there.
Because perhaps this is how the universe works. First it sends the counterfeit version. Then, eventually, if you keep writing long enough, working long enough, dreaming long enough and showing up for the work even when nobody is watching, it sends the real thing.
And if that day ever comes, I only hope I have not trained myself so thoroughly that I look at a genuine email from Shari Lapena and think: Absolutely not. Report phishing.
Until then, I suppose I will take the spam. At least my inbox has excellent taste.
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