I received an email from an old high school friend of mine last week, who I haven’t heard from in almost 20 years (don’t do the math, please…). He’s now living in Europe (he moved back during high school) and discovered Kill Shakespeare in his own journeys. It was a really nice thing to receive out of the blue.

We spend so much of our lives working on our stories and one of the best things is to know that people are reading what we’ve written – and more importantly, that it helps bring people together. It makes all of the long hours and doubts completely worth it.

The letter reads (I’ve edited out one line in the opening paragraph):

Hello Anthony.

You may not remember me, but we went to school together back in South Porcupine. We had mutual friends… and back then I used the name Matti. Only after moving to Finland have I started using my real name. 

But as to the reason of this letter. It is nothing more then a letter from an acquaintance from long ago congratulating you on your achievements. I literally stumbled onto Kill Shakespeare while working. A few years ago I was working as a child and family counselor in the university hospital of Tampere in the pediatric oncology and hematology unit. I walking into a patients room, and as I said literally stumbled on this book.  I was immediately intrigued, as was the patient due to my English language. It turned out to be just the right “ice breaker” that was needed to start the process I went through with the family for what turned out to be a long, painful and sadly final trip to the hospital for this family. But it wasn’t until now, years later I once again came across this series that I looked a little closer at it and realized that it was the Anthony that I knew back in Porcupine. I now live with my family  close to the Russian boarder in a small town/village called Kiihtelysvaara,close to Joensuu in North-Eastern Finland where I am going for my masters in theology to become a pastor at the university. As such, from time to time I do work with the youth group and young adults. One of youth group kids brought your comic on a camping trip that we were on and he asked that I read it to them as my pronunciation is somewhat better then theirs.

So congrats to you Anthony, you have a following way over here in Finland too. I wish you all the best. 

Kindest regards,

Matti