Jonathan Cott, a journalist and writer, regularly contributed interview/profiles to Rolling Stone magazine throughout the 1970s.  For the past 38 years, Jonathan and I have been corresponding.

He spoke with Maurice Sendak in 1977, and when Sendak died in May 2012, I wrote to Jonathan.

 Dear Jonathan:

I see that Mr. Sendak has died.  I remember reading “Where The Wild Things Are” to my nephew, Peter, nearly 40 years ago and him asking me to read it to him over and over again.

Of all your work, your interview with Maurice Sendak was one of my favourite pieces.  I read it on the Number 6 bus as it crawled through traffic in downtown Ottawa during a snowstorm.  Enchanted by your exchange with Sendak, I got off the bus and, neath a street lamp, I stood doing a little Bing Crosby and catching snowflakes on my tongue, until a little man driving a very large snow plow nearly ran over me.

Jim

Jonathan’s reply contained a wonderful memory of Maurice Sendak and one of his fans:

Dear Jim

Maurice would have loved your story about the snowflakes — and I’m extremely happy that you avoided that snow plow. Very sad about Maurice’s passing since I got to know him very well over the years both socially and professionally.

I think you’ll get a kick out of something Sendak once said (especially since it concerns your namesake):

“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Think on it. I wrote: ‘Dear Jim, I loved your card.’ Then I got a letter back from his mother, and she said, ‘Jim loved your card so much he ate it.’ That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was a original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”

Hope all’s well.

Jonathan

Post-script:  In November, last year, Jonathan wrote to inform me that he had begun working on a book about Maurice Sendak, “specifically about one of his picture books called ‘Outside Over There,’ that he considered to be his masterpiece but isn’t well known ….”