You receive a letter from an arts organization you’ve never heard of and certainly don’t recall applying to. They want you to come to the side of a mountain and do nothing but write for five months. You tell your husband, and he is not happy. “That’s too long,” he says. “The cat will die of missing you. I will be very mean when you come back and who the hell needs to live on the side of a mountain for five months?” Well, no one.
Read MoreMy early experiences with dating sober had been disastrous. I was gun shy and skittish and had left the table during several dates, never to return. I developed a massive crush on a brilliant man who had been sober for years while I had just finished my ninety days. Although he suggested we remain friends, I invited him to dinner, determined to dance the Dance of the Seven Veils and finally have sober sex. Halfway through this plan, before the chocolate mousse, I burst into tears.
Read MoreI was always aware of the magic and the misery of being a writer. Like most children, I watched my father carefully and witnessing both the triumph of his work being praised and the bitterness of rejection, I had a skewed vision of what it might mean to commit. Thus, I did not. While taking a full load of English classes, I majored in history and dismissed suggestions to submit my fiction despite high praise from many qualified people. While I might have been regarded as a child and adult who wrote, I basically saw the profession as hopeless. I failed to submit anything until I was fired from my job and had the time to think about writing something like a novel. How did I write that novel? At waitress stations and on the subway, waiting for buses and doctors, in moments between breakfast and leaving for work, during nights when it was possible to stay awake, typed on an electric typewriter, revised and edited sometimes based on my refusal to retype something.
Read More
