A to Z: Letters to Dead Writers: Patricia Clapp

This month I'm writing one post for each letter of the alphabet, all on the theme of "Letters to Dead Writers." You can see my theme reveal post here and learn more about the blogging challenge here.

Today's writer is Patricia Clapp.
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Dear Ms. Clapp,

I read your book Jane-Emily at the perfect impressionable age to set my tastes for life. I think I was about twelve.

Maybe I would have been a fan of gothic romance and stories with evil children in them anyway. Maybe it's just me. I also loved the Addam's Family and Dark Shadows when I was a kid, after all.

But I think you get at least some of the credit for my interest because of the vibrant world and wonderful sense of menace you created in that novel. I've read it twice since, and it holds up for me as an adult. That's not something I can say about everything I loved as a child.

The edition of Jane-Emily I read as a child came compiled with another of your books, The Witches' Children. That one came more from history, taking the reader with you back to Salem, Massachusetts, during the years that made that city a household name. It started a fascination with that case and that section of history that lasted many years in me.

But Emily! I still think of her every time I see a gazing ball in a garden. She was wonderfully malevolent, and because she attacked a child, it was so nearly a tragedy. No one ever believes the children in time! 

So, thank  you Ms. Clapp. You opened up a world of story for me that still bring me joy and cold chills today.

Love,
Samantha