To Terry Pratchett - No one is ever gone when they are not forgotten

Here's to Terry Pratchett - arguably my favourite author of all time. 

I never met him but I feel like I've lost a dear friend. He made me laugh. Often. Loudly. Until tears streamed down my face.

He also inspired me as a writer. He inspired me to be creative and clever and imaginative. He inspired me to think outside the box and write my characters until they felt like solid, real people I might one day meet.

He also taught me a lot. He taught me about politics and literary history, about geography and philosophy, about plays and poetry. About life. 

I am grateful to have lived in his time, to have grown up reading his stories and to know that I can visit him again whenever I want by picking up Mort or Wyrd Sister or Hat Full of Sky or The Hogfather or Snuff or Equal Rites or any number of others - it's nearly impossibly to pick a favourite.

Here's to a man who wrote about the weirdos and the freaks and the little guy and the oppressed in an alternative world of his own imaginings.

Thank you, Terry, for sharing your imagination so skillfully and with such grace and talent. 

The world is better for having had you in it.