Who am I?

A question came up over dinner with friends Friday evening.

How do you define who you are?

For some people, it's ethnicity. For others, it's sexuality. For many, it's vocation or avocation.

My definition of self exists in the intersection where my life and my job come together. I am the adoptive mom of a special needs daughter, an actress, an animal lover, a poet, an occasional found-object artist, an award-winning columnist and a 30-year veteran of the newspaper business.

Notice that nowhere in there does it say "public speaker." But that's what I'll be doing Saturday at the Northwest Arkansas Author Book Fair and Luncheon, a fundraiser and friend raiser for the Bentonville Public Library. The luncheon, says Brenda Compton of the Bentonville Library Foundation, is an effort to promote local authors to potential new readers.

For me, giving the keynote talk is an opportunity to promote the importance of the written word. At that juncture between my "real" life and my professional one, I get to write about the things that matter most to me -- theater, history, music, art and the people who give of their hearts and souls to entertain, enlighten and educate. I've been lucky enough to interview personal heroes like LeVar Burton, Mick Foley -- he's a professional wrestler; don't judge -- and Temple Grandin, and I've found new heroes like artist Zeek Taylor, photographer John Rankine, playwright Bob Ford and musicians Ezra Idlet and Keith Grimwood.

Beyond that, I truly enjoy sharing my real life with my readers, an arrogance that has brought both accolades and acidic rejection. One reader calls every time I mention "heaven" to tell me in voice mail I'm going to hell because my daughter's dad and I divorced. Every time, it hurts my heart. I want to talk to her, to explain, to reason, to plead my case. I can't, because she chooses to remain anonymous. But from her I get a clear idea of what it's like, even in 2015, for a woman to be judged by someone else's standards and be found wanting. I hope that makes me a better person and a better writer.

That's the premise I want to put forward on Saturday: The written word can profoundly change lives. When Dan and I discovered we couldn't have children and set out to adopt, readers followed that process with sympathetic interest. When we chose a child with special needs, some applauded -- and some wept at our innocence -- but in the end, I think many were touched by our experiences. A stranger came up to me at the grocery store once and asked if I was Becca Martin. She wanted to tell me, she said, that every time she started to take anger or frustration out on her children, she thought of Amanda. And she put herself in time-out until she was calm enough to be better, kinder, wiser in the situation.

That one moment is reason to keep writing for the rest of my life.

I've shared with readers the reunion with an old college friend who became my sweetheart for 18 months -- until he lost the battle with cancer. Right now, readers ask most often about Ghost, an ancient black Lab who showed up homeless in my neighborhood and knew a sucker when she met one. Now, she lives on cheeseburgers, chicken tenders and adoration -- which isn't a bad retirement plan. And I am convinced their kind questions -- you might call them their prayers -- have lengthened her life.

So much in our world now is ephemeral -- a voice message, an email, a text -- some of them written words, yes, but not words intended for remembering. The power of the written word -- fact or fiction, novel or newspaper -- is that it survives, often past the lifetime of its writer.

I hope you'll come to the library Saturday. I won't talk long -- I promise -- and you'll get to meet a lot of amazing authors whose books change their corners of the world. And we, as storytellers, look forward to meeting you!

NAN Our Town on 02/05/2015