Lin-Manuel Miranda is a really generous person, and will even give a nod to lesser-known writers, in much the same way that Stephen Sondheim did.
Even in responding to online comments in the New York Times! This happened ten years ago (Nov. 24 2015).
In my case, I've never met him (I still haven't), but Mr. Miranda saw some of my comments in parody lyric form in the Times reader comments section and encouragingly tweeted
"Freddie the NYTimes commenter is a local treasure."
One of my all-time favorite "reviews" - that tweet even wound up on my parents' fridge in Florida. My parents weren't all that familiar with Sondheim's work all that specifically, but they and their friends and neighbors in Florida knew who Mr. Miranda is, and this - along with several books I'd written of my lyrics - added validation with them, and their encouragement that came from that.
Writers need encouragement and Mr. Miranda went out of his way to do that. And in what might be called a meta moment, the New York Times itself even reprinted online Mr. Miranda's generous tweet about my New York Times comments -
towards the bottom of this article
Ten years later, I'm still looking for that breakthrough. But that generous tweet ten years ago meant so much!
