My hero, #WilliamGoldman, died earlier today. Let me tell you a story about how he befriended a sick girl who wanted to be a writer and gave her hope. This is a cool and true story and I’ll always be grateful.
When I was 16, I stopped doing my #CysticFibrosis treatment. I was sad and depressed. Then I saw #PrincessBride while at a birthday party, and it changed my life. It became the only thing that got me through treatment at night.
After homework was done, my mom and I would settle in and watch PB. I read all his novels too. #thesilentgondolier is the best other one.
Because #cysticfibrosis is a terminal childhood illness, I got to @MakeAWish and I wished to meet the man who wrote the best movie ever made.
Apparently he was like, what a teenager wants to meet me? What for? Hehe.
My folks and I flew to New York and met him. I’d emailed him my movie treatment a week before (about a girl with CF, and her friends, and they all do a talent show). He’d read it thoroughly and gave me an hour’s worth of notes.
He then took us to the fanciest restaurant I’d ever been to. When it was dessert time, they wheeled out every dessert in the restaurant! We tried them all!
We went to look at fancy Italian shoes at the place across the street. We looked in the window at these high brow shoes. He goes, Do you know how much those shoes cost?! Who’d spend that much on shoes?!
He gave me a signed Princess Bride poster of the Cliffs of Insanity. He’d signed it, “Don’t fall. Bill G.”
He asked a lot of questions at lunch about CF, why I took enzymes, even if and when and how I was gonna die. He wasn’t rude, just inquisitive. It was awesome. I love questions like that. I thought about that stuff at 16 and was eager to share with him.
He told me that I was a good writer, that I had talent, and to keep sending him my stuff. I did. We emailed back and forth for the next eight years. He took my parents and I out to dinner when they were in town. 
He was generous, and kind, and a bright light in this time in my life when things could’ve gone a lot of ways. He was also a grumpy old man, and told funny stories about celebrities that made me laugh.
One email I liked: “I WAS TRYING TO BE FUNNY, BURKE. GIVE ME A BREAK.”
Him on voting for the Oscars: “I get the ballot, open it and within no more than two minutes truly I vote and mail it”
I wrote a blog post about him with more detail. He was the best and I’ll always be grateful. Thanks, Bill G. Don’t fall.
Some people have been telling me that my website link leads to a bot site! Sorry, I'm fixing it! :)
It’s fixed!!
