Unexpected things can happen if you send a letter to someone you’d love to meet. Someone famous. A person you’d expect to have far too much to do to answer you.

Here is a letter that worked, but not in the expected way. Five letters, actually.

A class of students responded to an assignment from their teacher at Xavier High School, a Jesuit, all-boys academy in New York.

Ms. Lockwood was her name. She asked them each to write to their favorite author to persuade him or her to visit their classroom. Five of these letters targeted Kurt Vonnegut, the superb novelist.

Vonnegut’s response didn’t include a promise to visit the young men. What he offered, however, was something better—a letter that has become famous by itself.

The 84-year-old man urged them to partake in the joy, gift, and focus of creation. He gave them directions on how to make themselves larger, fuller, more self-aware, and take the road to the lifelong task of “becoming.”  The missive, including Vonnegut’s cartoon of himself, is directly below.

November 5, 2006

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The 1965 photo of Kurt Vonnegut is the work of Bernard Gotfryd, sourced from Wikipedia Commons.