Stories speak to people in different ways. Yet it is the person behind the story who pushes the literature into a malleable body of imaginative possibilities. Author visits transform quiet written words from a private exchange between reader and author into a lively community discussion. North Country School, in northern New York, sits in the middle of the 6.2 million-acre Adirondack State Park. Each January, at the farm boarding school in Lake Placid, students from all over the US and as far away as Korea, Rwanda, Poland and Ecuador meet a visiting author whose work has been well introduced to them. Language is never a barrier and conversation is curious and stimulating. The following article focuses on visits in recent years.