Recognizing His Fame

Tom Vartabedian spent 40 years as an award-winning writer and photographer with the Haverhill Gazette.  Now, writing in a recent online edition of the Armenian Weekly, Vartabedian reflects on some of the famous writers he has encountered over the years and how they lived with their fame.

And then Vartabedian drops a quick reference to Bellairs:

John Bellairs wrote close to 20 books, all of them best-sellers in their realm. Some were made into movies and translated into different languages. He would walk the streets of my city, eat at Burger King, and nobody knew the man.

People outside his city considered him an icon. Those in Haverhill, Mass. knew him only as the pedestrian he was, dining in fast food joints and keeping a low profile.