Fan receives response to letter from Elliott Smith 23 years later

A fan of Elliott Smith has discovered an unsent letter that he wrote to her, over two decades after his death. READ MORE: 50 years of Elliott Smith: the tender songwriter’s greatest tracks, as nominated by his close friends and fans The letter was written in response to a piece of fan mail, which was written by a then-teenage girl called Kirby Van Amburgh from Dallas. She wrote the letter in 2000, three years before Smith died, aged 34, after suffering two stab wounds to the chest. Now named Kirby Rock, the fan has written a new essay for The Huffington Post, explaining that while she thought that Smith never received the letter, she has recently discovered that he not only saw it, but also penned a moving response that went unsent. She found out about Smith’s letter after a journalist named Jamie Fisher reached out, saying that they were working on an Elliott Smith biography called Nobody Broke Your Heart, and had stumbled upon both Kirby’s letter and a response penned by the musician. In her original letter, she told Smith that she found his music “really addictive” and added: “It’s so original and creative. I’ve never heard anything like it”. She also told the musician that he w...