In Person

March 18, 2013

A Frolic of My Own: Meeting William Gaddis 4

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Mr. William Gaddis had a request for me. Would I be so kind as to review a mock judicial opinion meant to form part of his “novel in the form of a network of lawsuits”? You bet I would!

February 12, 2013

The League of Ordinary Gentlemen: A Conversation with Julian Barnes 3

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“A friend of mine once said to me, why are so many of the characters in your novels so sort of wimpy and passive? …I suppose it’s that I’m less interested in the typical hero who goes out and does things. My heroes don’t do things. Sometimes things are done to them.”

January 18, 2013

Letters in the Wind: A Writer’s Evolution 7

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I realized that my writing at age 28 was a lot like my golf game as a teenager: a single gust of wind and it went to Hell.

January 4, 2013

The Old Corner Bookstore Is Now A Chipotle 19

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On the wall behind her, a sign informs me that this is “food with integrity.” A dozen meat strips sizzle on the open stove; Chipotle’s chicken, boasts another sign, “is raised without antibiotics and fed a diet free of animal by-products.”

November 20, 2012

Goodwill in Brooklyn: On Donating Books to Unexpected Readers 12

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I am uncomfortable shedding books. The three boxes my husband and I were holding, plus three more in the trunk of the car, were the result of a careful purge executed after living abroad for a year.

November 19, 2012

Electricity Junkies: On Life in the Blackout Zone 1

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I woke at dawn, ate supper when the sun set, and slept straight through the nights. My rest gorged on dark and quiet as if sleep were celebration, free from horns and big rigs, sirens, sidewalk screams and glare — the gang that, most evenings, steals into my room and snaps my dreams in pieces.