Ryan Winfield

New York Times

bestselling author. Recreational pilot and provider of foodstuffs to one very hungry Maine Coon. Cultivator of roses, apparently to feed a mob of blacktail deer.

Find me on Substack.

If your book club or organization would like to arrange an appearance from me, either in person or via Skype, please send me a private message at Facebook with your request.

I've been asked why I write. I write because I remember.

I remember waking up to snow. I remember racing to dress, struggling with my boots – “Here, don't forget your mittens.” I remember the soft thump of that first footstep, the tracks looking back, and everything new and blanketed in quiet white. Foghorns blowing on the mist-covered bay. I feel the canvas newspaper bag on my shoulders, the weight of Sunday's headlines heavy on my mind. I remember rubber bands and ink stained hands. A car spun sideways in a ditch. Always a car. Then barking dogs, a distant chainsaw. I remember snowmen and igloos and icy trails through the white and wondrous woods. And I remember sweet Mrs. Johnson waiting at her door; the smell of Avon powder, her smile as she pressed an envelope into my palm—ten dollars and a peppermint candy cane thank you!

Evening now, running downtown. Everything passes in an excited blur. Salvation Army bells, white lights strung in sidewalk trees, bundled shoppers, hunched and hurrying, kicking up little snowdrifts scattered by the wind. And now I’m here. The heavy door, the warmth, the light, the old wood floors—the bookstore! Smells of paper and leather and ink. Walls of worlds bound and waiting for me.

Nothing has affected me as much as reading has. Dickens, Tolkien, and Lewis raised me. And while I've walked through my own hell, made my own mistakes, and found my own redemption, always there have been books. Books to help me escape, books for courage when I needed to stay and fight. Books that taught without preaching the difference between wrong and right. Books upon books to feed a boy’s feverish dreams; and the boy now grown, it’s still books that kindle the memories of those dreams on these long winter nights.

And so, I remember. And I write.