I asked an author for an interview and was turned down. This is not a big deal in and of itself, but it's left me with a bitter taste. Lemme splain.

This woman is a proponent of non-duality who has a new book (her first) for a mainstream audience. The book is OK, nothing too earth-shaking, but I like this woman's vibe, I've been reading the transcripts of her lectures and talks for years, and she seems really cool. Her whole message is "there's really nothing special you have to do, just realize you're already enlightened."

I requested an interview, and both her publicist and her assistant were enthusiastic and helpful about lining it up. The author decided that e-mail worked best for her.

So, I crafted a list of what I thought were incisive, interesting and respectful questions, and e-mailed them to her as she requested. I framed the questions around parts of her book, to tie in with her promotional tour.

So today she sent me an e-mail back saying "I have decided to pass on the interview as the questions do not focus specifically enough on the book....it is best that I focus entirely on the promotion of [her mediocre book] and the ideas and qualities about which I have written."

OK, I know this isn't the first time in the annals of promotional book tours that an author has flaked out of an interview, but I'm left scratching my head and feeling a little hurt. The questions were about her book, and they were good questions. I suppose she was questioning the number of people who would have read the interview and found it didn't jibe with her sales agenda. Which is fine, but why couldn't she just say so?

I guess I'm hurt because you might expect something like this from some hack writer, but not someone who claims to have all the answers to life's riddles, ya know?

Hrmph. I don't know why I'm taking this so personally, I was just really looking forward to interviewing her.