The last guest post in our 12 days of the Class of 2k12 comes from Lynne Kelly (Chained, FSG, May). She’s here to talk about her collection — and it’s one that shouldn’t surprise you too much! I’ve always loved elephants, but I wasn’t until I was writing CHAINED that I started hoarding collecting them. They sit on the writing desk as inspiration. Certainly I have enough, but it seems like I always find another one that really, really wants me to take it home.
Here’s one of the more recent additions, from an Etsy seller in Greece:
Adorable, isn’t he? And he looks great with the rest of the family:
I should introduce the rest of the herd:
- The dark wooden one I found on eBay
- Horton, of course
- In the back is a leather bank from Bookpeople in Austin
- The light-colored figure is from a shop in Hawaii where the little shop owner nearly tackled my mom when she tried to leave without buying anything
- The set in front are metal, from the Chautauqua bookstore when I was there for the Highlights Institute in 2008
- And the round metal thing is an elephant bell, also from eBay.
That’s not even the entire collection–there’s also a wooden mother and baby, and a wooden elephant bell I ordered when I was writing a scene for CHAINED in which a character carves one. (So that one was really necessary, wasn’t it? It’s research!)
And I have enablers. Sometimes people who know I love elephants will pick up elephant things for me…
…and people love to tell me about cute elephant things they’ve seen, and of course I have to check them out and maybe buy them.
I can stop anytime I want, really.