Once I found a pearl from a woman named Sarah Goodwin.

It was left there in my junk mail folder, along with all kinds of other stuff, like:

Complimentary Road Service Kit from AAA!

Your Steak Sampler from Omaha Steaks!

CTU Lifestyle is giving away 100 of their revolutionary back pain stretchers – the VitalRelease.

$125 Reward and 200-Piece DeWalt Tool Collection from ACE Hardware

Experience 34% Better Blood Flow Now! At the age of 70, Mike seems almost “Superhuman.”

I skim through the junk folder once or twice a week, just in case a legitimate email gets misdirected.

It happens.

Occasionally I find emails from prospective students there, or international scholars wanting sponsorship. Even my regular inbox gets jammed with daily emails from my insurance company, my bank, and especially my work (where every dean of every stripe has to send a special message about something at least once a week.)

It’s easy to get overwhelmed.

And so once or twice a week, I open my junk mail folder and search for jewels amongst the dross.

The other day I came across this cheerful message celebrating The Kimono Tattoo and inviting me to participate in book club activities.

Dear Ms. Copeland,

We’re thrilled at the possibility of featuring The Kimono Tattoo in our upcoming November Spotlight with the [Redacted] Women’s Book Club.

Our members gravitate toward novels where mystery meets meaning and your story of Ruth Bennett, caught between languages, cultures, and truths, has that magnetic pull. The Kyoto setting, rich with color and quiet menace, offers a perfect landscape for readers who crave literary suspense with emotional depth.

The feature includes:


• • A dedicated spotlight in our newsletter and community channels
  • Reader discussions on cultural identity, reinvention, and the thin line between fiction and reality
  • An optional author Q&A for members intrigued by your craft and cross-cultural perspective

Would you be open to collaborating with us on this feature?

And my answer was YES.

Enthusiastically, yes.

This is why I monitor my junk folder. You never know when you’re going to find some exciting bit of news or invitations to something fun.

And besides, look at the way the president of the book club described my novel! They obviously “got it.”

The Kyoto setting, rich with color and quiet menace, offers a perfect landscape for readers who crave literary suspense with emotional depth.

Exactly!

Interest in The Kimono Tattoo has waned a bit. I am always eager to find new readers.

The book club president responded immediately to my email, equally delighted to have me on board, and then dropped this tidbit:

We don’t charge for the feature itself. However, to secure your spotlight slot, we request a reservation fee of $300. This supports our design, editing, and outreach efforts across our international community of readers.


I consulted with my publisher, Brother Mockingbird, and we agreed it was not something to pursue.
And sure enough, just on the heels of this email, I got another one from a different book club.

I’m the event organizer of the Redacted Book Club, a community of over 6,600 readers, writers, and story lovers who gravitate toward fiction that lingers long after the final page.

Your novel The Kimono Tattoo immediately stood out to us for its rich sense of place and its elegant blend of literary depth and suspense. The way you thread Kyoto’s cultural texture through Ruth Bennett’s emotional journey creates a story that’s both intimate and cinematic a thriller with a poet’s heart.

Wow!

Flattery will get you everywhere. And they even employed clothing metaphors—thread, texture, etc.—but it was the “cinematic thriller with a poet’s heart” that got me.

When I replied, I received the answer I have now come to expect:

We don’t charge for the feature itself; participation and exposure are completely complimentary. There’s just a small spot reservation fee of $200, which helps cover the behind-the-scenes costs of preparing and promoting each feature: design work, distribution, and audience outreach.

Looks like a new scheme to prey on the desperate aspirations of small-time writers. My friend D.C. Palter recently wrote about a similar racket.

Out of the blue, you’ll get an email from a “fellow writer” who gushes over your novel and then offers to help you promote your work. “Such a shame for your strong writing to be overlooked, after all.” This new friend can introduce you to an agent who has represented real biggies like JM Coetzee and other Nobel Prize winners. Who knows, you could be next!

Of course, there’s a small fee…

Where’s there’s hope, there’s a target!

And then, sometimes, among the scams and the cons, you find a legitimate letter there in your junk folder just waiting to be rescued. The hidden pearl.

I found this one last month:

Hi Professor Copeland,

My name is Sarah Goodwin and I am an American currently on a trip to Japan with my friends Magdalene and Nick. At Magdalene’s impetus we all have gotten into modern Japanese literature in the last couple years and one of the reasons for this trip is to visit locations connected to the writers we have gotten to know. Magdalene and I both loved Women Critiqued and The Father Daughter Plot and I also really enjoyed spending time with Yamamba recently. Why I’m writing to you tonight however is because one of the places we wanted to see in Kyoto was Jun’ichiro Tanizaki’s grave marker and as we were feeling our way through the cemetery in the dark this evening, it was your blog post that led us to the correct location. Thank you very much. We hope to engage with more of your scholarship in the future!

Best,
Sarah, Magdalene and Nick

What a lovely email!
She must have read the post about the Hōnen-in scene I edited out of The Kimono Tattoo.

What a thrill to learn that people actually READ my blog and find the information useful. And what a surprise to know that some people read my academic collections and choose to read them for no reason other than to enjoy them!

Immediately I tried to respond to Sarah.

I wanted to find out more about her and Magdalene and Nick and their trip to Tanizaki’s grave in the dark.

But search as I might, I could not find her email address. It did not appear through the contact form she used to email me. I tried googling, but my protagonist Ruth is a much better internet sleuth than I am. And, Sarah Goodwin is not an unusual name.

So, Sarah, if you ever return to my blog…THANK YOU.

Thank you for sending me a real email, a sincere message. Thank you for engaging with my work.

May you continue reading and exploring and being wonderfully kind to writers.

And I will keep setting aside time to peruse my junk mail.

Looking for the next hidden pearl.