Forget the stereotypical image of an author sitting at a table, sharing a few words with the person in front before turning to sign the next book.

Such is not Carew Papritz’s style.

Papritz, a 1980 Auburn High School graduate, reminded everyone of that when he recently returned to his hometown to lead another nontraditional launching of his latest book, “The Legacy Letters”, at the Auburn Valley YMCA.

Cowboy hat atop his head, Papritz treats every event he attends as if it had been staged in Hollywood. After all, he holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UCLA’s film school.

This time, the prop was balloons. Papritz said he came up with the idea when he wanted to do a book signing over Niagara Falls, which is a no-no. He then decided to shrink the books and attach a balloon to each so they could soar over the famous landmark.

More than 100 children at the Y participated in Papritz’s latest sendoff. He said others interested in participating can download and print the book, which includes a launch tracking number, and then write in it and attach a balloon. If the child who finds the book visits Papritz’s website, it will provide details on how far the book traveled. The goal, he said, is to set a Guinness World Record.

Papritz long has used creative methods to promote his books. He has had signings along the Skagit River, at the Space Needle and at Mount St. Helens. Papritz’s first book signing was on a horse at the Barnes & Noble in Tucson, Ariz., where he, his wife and their 9-year-old son maintain a residence, in addition to one in the Seattle area. It was there that he had planned to become the first author to sign a book digitally, but he had to set that hope aside upon learning that soccer star David Beckham had already beaten him to it two weeks earlier.

“I love being outside,” Papritz said. “I love doing different things. I came up with this idea of walking the talk of the book, which is living life to its fullest.”

“The Legacy Letters” centers on a terminally-ill father who writes 200 letters to his children, whom he has never met, as he lives out his final months in a mountain cabin. His lawyer eventually retrieves the letters and releases them to the children on their 10th birthdays. The children then release 40 letters to the public, and these are the foundation of the book. Papritz is planning a follow-up to the book, which can be purchased at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Costco.

“It is the first book in publishing history to win awards in fiction and nonfiction, and that is really because the book is these letters of life that this father who never lives to see his kids leaves behind for them, and it becomes their practical world and spiritual guide book,” Papritz said.

Kids and adults, he said, have told him that the book resonates with them. In one case, Papritz said, a boy who does not have a dad told him he wished that the father was his own.

“What’s interesting is the awards reflect how people are using it,” Papritz said. “They’re using it like a life-lessons book. You write a book as an author – it’s fictional – and all of the sudden people are going out there and saying that your letter on marriage did this for me, or your letter on raising kids did this. I’ve actually had people say it saved their marriage because of reading it.”

Papritz said he wrote a couple of books during his early 20s that were edited by his English teacher at Auburn High, Russ Tremayne. He even worked as a freelance reporter in Lebanon at one point, but did not write again until he left the film industry and ended up in the Southwest at age 33.

“Driving around the West, I ended up at a small ranch in southern Arizona along the Mexico border about as far away from the world as you can go,” said Papritz, who found a fencing job from an “old cowboy” in the area. “I completely left the fast life of the city, and the pen picked itself up and just wrote like a madman.

“You could not see a light as far as you could look. It was really five years of writing, riding horses and taking care of cattle and stuff.”

Now, Papritz visits places from Auburn to the East Coast, sometimes on an Amtrak train, to share his experiences, those detailed in the book – and to hear the stories of others.

“At that point, you’re not the author anymore,” he said. “You’re the messenger. I’m really humbled by it.”

PHOTO BELOW: Carew Papritz leads a nontraditional launching of his latest book, “The Legacy Letters”, at the Auburn Valley YMCA.
Chris Chancellor, Auburn Reporter