The Kids are All Right: Liz and Diana Welch

The Kids Are All Right

I knew ever since I was 21 years old that I was going to write my life story.

I know that sounds pretentious—whenever I would tell people I was working on a memoir, they’d say, ‘how is that possible? You are too young!’

And then I tell them my story, which started out like a fairy tale:

My father was an investment banker, my mother a well known soap opera actress. They got married in New York City, and then moved to a suburb an hour north, to a preppy town called Bedford, New York.

At the time, my mother had quite a following:  she was the original Maggie on the Doctors, a well know soap opera in the sixties.  She left the show to give birth to my big sister Amanda, and then was hired to play Eunice on Search for Tomorrow.   She got pregnant with me, and the writers wrote her pregnancy into the show. 

Dan was born next. And our life seemed perfect.  We had pets, and a pool, and went on vacations to Disney Land. I never once recall my parents even fighting. I really had the happiest childhood.  Then Diana was born.  We called her the “love child” as she was not planned. Mom was 42.  She called Diana a “happy accident.”

Happy really is the best word to describe our family. 

And then, in 1982, our father died in a car accident.

I was 13 at the time. I was in 8^th grade.  Diana was only 4.  Amanda, my big sister, was 16.  And Dan was 11.

We only have a few photos of the four of us together during that sad time—sad not only because our father had died, but because one month after his death, our mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

To be honest, none of us believe she was going to die—that meant we’d be orphans.  That was an impossible notion!  Oliver Twist and Annie were the only orphans I knew.   We were privileged kids with ponies, and a country club membership too! 

But those perks disappeared after our father died.  He left our mother in terrible debt—1.2 million dollars to be exact.   Mom sold our house and 7 acres of the estate we grew up on, and the five of us squeezed into the three-room caretakers cottage on the remaining seven acres.   Dan slept in a walk in closet.

Our mother was told she had six months to live after our father died but she was strong—she lived for 3 ½ years before finally succumbing to the disease on December 13, 1985.  Diana was 8 years old, Dan was 14, I was 16 and a senior in high school and Amanda was 19 and a junior at New York University.

Here’s the hard thing:  none of us really believed she was going to die.  We kept thinking she’d beat the cancer.  She did too. That is why she did not make adequate arrangements for us, her kids, after she passed away. As a result, the four of us were split up and we learned, by writing this book together, that losing our parents was not the most painful thing that ever happened to us:  being split up as a result of that loss was.

It took five years before the five of us found one another again—I moved in with a local family for six months before graduating from high school and taking off—first to Europe for a year, then to Georgetown University where hardly anyone knew I had lost my parents.   I kept it a secret.  Diana stayed with another local family who felt it was in her best interest to not see her siblings.  The family was preppy and proper—they thought we were wild, and drug addicts.  They were not entirely wrong.

Dan was bounced around from one family to another before he landed in an apartment in NYC with our mother’s dear friend, a single career woman who had never had or wanted kids.  And Amanda left New York city for Charlottesville Virginia after being held up at gun point.  She was sick of the city.

That is where our story ends—Amanda bought an old farmhouse and for the first time in five years, the Welch kids had a place to go and be together. Diana’s family decided, for reasons we are still fuzzy on, that it was time for Diana to move back with her big sister. 

The book begins with me as a 13 year old losing her dad, and ends with Diana as a 13 year old finding her family.

And it is told from all four perspectives. In fact, I tried to write this story for 15 years by myself. I wrote three drafts and none of them worked.  So one day, I wrote a scene about my father’s funeral and sent it to Diana who by then was living in Austin Texas and, like me, making her living as a journalist.

I asked Diana to line edit my work. She called me the same day she received the story and said, I don’t remember any of this!  Instead of editing my memories, she wrote her own, and sent them to me.

I remembered the outfit I wore and the fight I was in with my best friend.  I was 13.  Diana remembered how dad smelled, the feel of his scratchy beard on her soft cheek. She was 4.

We asked Amanda what she remembered. As a 16 year old, she remembered our mother falling apart.  That made her angry.

We asked Dan, and he remembered Dad telling him that “men don’t cry” and struggling with his own sadness about our dad’s death, now that he was the “man of the family.”

Losing your parents is every kids worst nightmare.  And it happened to us.  And we not only survived, we thrived.  This story is about that loss, but it is also about sibling love.  And being teenagers—yes, there are sad scenes of our mother coming back from chemo, or from the hospital with a bag instead of a bladder. But there are also hilarious scenes of keg parties gone awry and my brother getting busted for turning science beakers into a bong in boarding school.

I have visited several high schools to talk about this book and am constantly amazed at how students respond.   Because this story is told in four perspectives, everyone picks a favorite character—the person the most relate with, or feel for.  Most people love Amanda—she is the tough one. She swears in every chapter. And the first line of the book, she tells the reader that she hates her family.  By the end of the book, she is the one who brings us back together.

Dan is the only boy—which means he has to go through puberty in a house full of women. 

And Diana is the baby. She sees the world through childlike eyes.

What we learned from writing our book this way—together—is that everyone has the right to their own version of the same story. 

In the book we openly disagree with one another about very serious things:  like my mother’s cancer diagnosis.    I remember the tumor being the size of a grapefruit and in her uterus.  Amanda corrects me on the very next page:  Actually, she says, it was cervical cancer and the size of an almond.

In my 13-year-old mind, it got bigger.

This book was inspired by William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, which tells the death of Addie Bundren from several different points of view—from Addie’s husband, to her young son Vardamon to the vultures that are trailing the horse drawn wagon that is carrying Addie’s coffin to the family burial ground.

I am in no way comparing myself to Faulkner!  But I will say this:  his book inspired me to write mine. And I think our story will inspire your students to write their own family stories, from different points of view.

It certainly lends itself to that.  I have lead workshops at different high schools that focus on point of view—pick an important milestone in your life.  Who was there?  Write about that moment from your own point of view.  Now pick another person at the scene—how might that person experience it differently?  Now write about the same scene from his or her point of view.  One student wrote about the day her parents told her they were getting divorced.  After class, she came up to me to say, “I never thought about it from my father’s point of view before.  I see it in a new way.”

That is in the end all we can hope for—to make people see things from different angles, to broaden their world view. 

My brother and sisters are my best friends still to this day. And we could not be any more different.  We respect one another’s memories and stories and experiences.  That helped us recover from a most painful loss.  And we hope will lead others to heal too.

Liz Welch is the co-author of The Kids Are All Right with her sister, Diana.  Her siblings Dan and Amanda also contributed. Find out more at www.thekidsareallrightbook.com.

Originally posted at the Atlantic Wire and has been republished with the consent of the author,
Alex Leo.

Nora Ephron: The Funniest Feminist

Lucas Jackson / Reuters

Alex Leo 8,680 ViewsJun 26, 2012

Nora Ephron passed away today. Not only did we lose an amazing writer, thinker, journalist, storyteller, and director; we lost the world’s funniest feminist.
I was lucky enough to know Nora for my entire life. Whenever I gave her something of mine to read, her first note was inevitably “make it funnier” no matter if it was supposed to be funny or not. The second note was usually “more honesty”—instructing me to reveal the parts of myself I find deeply embarrassing or shameful or scary because that’s what this is all about, right? It’s very hard to challenge a woman who wrote about everything from her parents to her divorce to her neck, and there would have been no point in arguing because she was right…always.
Ephron came up in the 1960s, working first as an intern in John F. Kennedy's White House (“…it has become horribly clear to me that I am probably the only young woman who ever worked in the Kennedy White House whom the president did not make a pass at,” she wrote in The New York Times), and then the New York Post (she got that job by satirizing Post columnists and being a little too good at it). From there she started writing essays for Esquire like “A Few Words About Breasts,” which combined her penchant for personal history mixed with incredible humor.
Ephron graduated from Wellesley at a time when six girls in her class were expelled for lesbianism. “We weren't meant to have futures, we were meant to marry them,” she told the college's class of 1996. “We weren't' meant to have politics, or careers that mattered, or opinions, or lives; we were meant to marry them. If you wanted to be an architect, you married an architect.”
Naturally she had something to say about that. Her work in the late 1960s and 1970s focused on women, sex and the feminist movement, which was eventually compiled into the books Crazy Salad: Some Things About Women and Scribble Scribble. She used her greatest gift to cut to the core of inequality and misogyny so prevalent at the time:

• “Men dominate the conversations in Washington and therefore, as far as I am concerned, the conversations are far less interesting than those in New York.”
• “I am continually fascinated at the difficulty intelligent people have in distinguishing what is controversial from what is merely offensive.”
• “I am still amazed at the amount of Christian charity [Wellesley] stuck us all with, a kind of glazed politeness in the face of boredom and stupidity. Tolerance, in the worst sense of the word.… How marvelous it would have been to go to a women's college that encouraged impoliteness, that rewarded aggression, that encouraged argument.”

Forget the never-ending “women aren’t funny” line that spews from every male comedian who has been or will be on the Celebrity Apprentice. The debate Ephron tackled was sexual politics itself and she did it with humor, with words both powerful and resonant. She understood that aphorisms aren’t just throw-aways that cheapen over time but can be piercing retorts in the right woman’s mouth. As Entertainment Weekly wrote about Crazy Salad, “Gloria Steinem was never this much fun,” which is both a little catty and deeply true — Steinem’s weapon of choice was never humor.
Of course, Ephron also made fun of the women’s movement when she found things frustrating or ridiculous. You are more likely to be heard if you’re a member of a choir you’re preaching to after all. When Crazy Salad was published, the AP wrote, “A dedicated feminist, Miss Ephron nevertheless pokes affectionate fun at her consciousness-raising group and sexual politics (‘We have lived through the era when happiness was a warm puppy…and a dry martini and now we have come to the era when happiness is ‘knowing what your uterus looks like.’)” (Notice that the AP called her “Miss” and not “Ms.”)
Ephron took on Betty Friedan, Phyllis Chesler and Jan Morris in her essays, always poking holes where she saw hypocrisy, cliché or narcissism, and at the same time outwardly struggling with how to be a good reporter and a good feminist. I would (with admitted bias) argue that even if you don’t agree with what she wrote the courage and talent behind it was great for women.
As her career grew, she extended her voice from journalism to film, writing Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally, and directing Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail and many more. She said she “[tried] to write parts for women that are as complicated and interesting as women actually are.” Considering the number of Oscar nominations and the number of roles Meryl Streep took in her films, I think she exceeded expectations.
In 1996, two years before You’ve Got Mail would premiere, she gave the commencement address at her alma mater. After some warm-up jokes about dated hairstyles and tuition prices, Ephron, in no uncertain terms, challenged the graduating class to bring it or go home:

What I'm saying is, don't delude yourself that the powerful cultural values that wrecked the lives of so many of my classmates have vanished from the earth. Don't let The New York Times article about the brilliant success of Wellesley graduates in the business world fool you — there's still a glass ceiling. … Don't underestimate how much antagonism there is toward women and how many people wish we could turn the clock back. One of the things people always say to you if you get upset is, don't take it personally, but listen hard to what's going on and, please, I beg you, take it personally. Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim. Because you don’t have the alibi my class had.

Reading that as a woman in my late twenties makes me think two things: “God she’s right” and “wow the 90s were terrible.”
When her book I Feel Bad About My Neck came out, she again found herself at odds with some women of her generation who saw it as demeaning to negatively portray the process of aging. If that were what the book was about, I’d agree with them, but it was so much more than that. It was about family and politics, food and parenting, and yes, a look at those little embarrassing moments that come with time and all the little injustices your body inflicts without your consent. As she’s said in many ways over the years, “When you slip on a banana peel, people laugh at you. But when you tell people you slipped on a banana peel, it’s your laugh.” I dare you to argue that’s not empowerment.
Nora Ephron will be remembered for many things — that she loved her family, that she helped change the voice of journalism, that she was one of the first great female directors — but I will always remember her for what she did for women be they her friends, women she mentored, women she advised, women she employed or women who read/heard/saw her work. Thanks, Nora, from all of us.
Alex Leo is the director of web product for Thomson Reuters Digital. Previously she was a senior editor at The Huffington Post and an associate producer at ABC News. Her work has appeared on The Daily Beast, Jezebel, The Hairpin, as well as in Nora and Delia Ephron's play, Love, Loss and What I Wore.

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Topics: Obituary, Nora Ephron

Q & A: Frances Mayes (Author - Under the Tuscan Sun)

Q & A: Frances Mayes

As a girl growing up in Georgia, what were some catalysts to your love of literature and travel?

In a small town, I gravitated to the local library. Something to do! I read my way around the shelves. By high school, I was determined to read every single book there. Along the way, I decided that the most exciting thing to do in life was write, that is, once I figured out that not all writers were dead.  I kept notebooks on books I read and little red leather diaries with keys.

Why did you decide to pursue a career in writing and education?

Once in college, I fell hard for the romantic poets, then the modernist poets. I always loved the entire range of southern literature. I imagined myself in black, in Paris. In actual fact, I married after college and only became a writer very slowly. What spurred me was deciding to go to grad school. When I finished, I was invited to stay and teach. To my surprise, it suited me perfectly—the gift of good work with very motivated students, and the creativity of devising classes that taught the craft and vision of poetry. I later became department chair and stayed at the university for 23 years.  I loved building the department and teaching. There I wrote The Discovery of Poetry, a loving guide for readers and writers, and six books of poetry. My whole writing career before Under the Tuscan Sun was passionately focused on poetry.

Your memoir, Under the Tuscan Sun, chronicles your move to Italy.  What propelled you to make this transition?

Initially, I went for a month in the country. This was after divorce. I’d met Ed and was quite enchanted. As soon as we got there, I developed a grand scheme of spending more time in that blessed place. After thee summers of renting in various locations in Tuscany, I bought Bramasole. I kept my job in San Francisco—Ed and I only lived in Italy in the summers and vacations until about ten years ago. Now we spend more time there but we always live more or less half the year in the USA, too.

This move abroad was brave and unusual. How did you think outside of the box?

This was 1990. Believe me, it was outside the box! No one I knew ever had done that kind of crazy thing. Of course, now it is more usual, but then—mamma mia! That month in the country house just warmed my being in such a way that I knew it was a good idea to put myself there as much as possible.

How involved were you in the making of the film version of your book?

I met with the director over a period of a week, talking and scheming about what would work. We became good friends. The screenplay was essentially hers. I had nothing to do with casting, although I’m honored to have been played by the darling Diane Lane. The only thing I really didn’t like about the movie was her wardrobe. I would never dress as frumpily as she had to in most of the movie. I think she only had two pretty outfits in the whole film!

What are some of the similarities and differences in the places where you have lived (Georgia, Virginia, California, Italy)?

Mio dio! That’s a book. Let me just sound off a bit with a partial answer. California is like nowhere else on earth. It’s a country in itself and the way of the future. It is so far ahead in so many ways. Italy thousands of years deep and you’d need five lifetimes to be able to say, I know Italy. You cannot in one lifetime.  Georgia, Virginia, the two poles of the South. Gentry South, hardscrabble South. I love them both. Right now, it’s spring in North Carolina, where I live, and the sweetness of this season is unbearable. The land smells good, and all the houses are riding on rafts of pink and white azaleas. Everyone’s hanging out big ferns on the porches. The air is balm. Lucky to live in such diverse places.

Do you have advice for Americans who wish to live abroad?

No. You’re on your own!

Who are some artists and authors who inspire you?

My husband, Ed Mayes, poet. Friends:  Alberto Alfonso, architect and painter, Rena Williams, painter, John Beerman, painter, novelists Lee Smith, Michael Malone, Allen Gurganus. And old friends: Keats, Yeats, Colette, oh, so many.

     You’ve just returned from a book tour.

     Yes, 32 events in 23 cities. A fabulous experience!

    Can you share some details about your new book?

   The Tuscan Sun Cookbook is a gathering of the feasts we’ve prepared        while living there for two decades. It’s dedicated to the friends whose tables welcome us over and over. From these friends, we discovered the traditional recipes of their ancestors. But, more than that, we learned about how amazingly improvisational Tuscan cooks are around their ingredients. We looked into their pantries, made grappa with them, put up hundreds of jars of tomatoes, scrapped the dishes, fired up the bread oven, pulled up the onions, rolled out the pasta, pickled the eggplant, ironed the tablecloth, picked the wildflowers—tutto! It has been a grand adventure to find out how the Tuscans know how to live like the gods.

What is your opinion of social media and do you think it has made an impact on the genre of writing?

I’m fairly new to it. I love my blog and the interactions on it. www.fancesmayesbooks.com  Twitter is fun and very direct. On my book tour I met lots of Twitter pen pals and it was as if we did know each other. I think Twitter could get to be overwhelming by sheer volume. And I hate all the “inspiring” quotes—I scroll right past those. Facebook seems useful to keep in touch with people you know. I don’t like seeing so many pet pictures. If social media has any impact on the genre of writing, I would be surprised if it isn’t a negative one. I’m waiting for the dreary novel based on Twitter. But wait, I can see 140 character poems, little expanded haikus. Everything has an influence, right?

In your youth, what was the root of your love of literature and writing?

Undoubtedly that of most writers: reading, something that seemed so magical and was so earnestly desired when I was a very young child, that my mother, besides reading to me all the time, taught me to read when I was three. It’s a very short step from being an early and prolific reader to being a writer, at least the kind of writer I am. This is not to say that being a writer was my aim, when young. It was not. But the seeds of writerliness were sown from those books in those days, whether I knew it then or not. I do think there is something else at play here, because a great many people read prolifically and/or learn to read at a young age and do not become writers. I don’t know what that is, other than an inborn propensity to communicate. When this manifested in my school work, I was urged to consider writing and teaching (clearly there was a pedagogical bent to the work!) by my teachers.

In a former life, you were a Franciscan nun.  Can you please describe the circumstances behind pursuing this vocation and why did you depart?

No, I really can’t. There are many reasons and circumstances, spiritual and secular (mostly the latter) for both acts and most of them are personal and even those that aren’t are indescribable, at least in an interview of this length. I can tell you that part of the impetus was the pursuit of the Unknown,  another was to live a dedicated life in the service of good (whatever “good” means). It turned out that I had a different definition of “good” than was compatible with the convent in which I lived and worked, but it was a place and a time of great joy, great silence, and great learning. In one sense, my departure, though voluntary and a sad necessity, was not a departure at all, since the knowledge gained as well as so many of the skills, propensities and values inculcated during that time have remained with me.

You are a huge enthusiast of Welsh culture.  What attracts you to this part of the world?

Its invisibility. This is explained best in my Pushcart essay, Bendithion, which can be found here: http://www.bu.edu/agni/essays/print/2007/66-solow.html

Bendithion means “blessings” in Welsh.  What was the reasoning for choosing this title your essay?

Well I had other titles in mind (containing words like trothwyol and anweladwy) but honestly, I thought that this one was the easiest for Americans to pronounce. The idea was to convey that Wales and my liminal experience in it, was a gift, a benison - for which I was grateful.

What was the inspiration for your novel, Felicity and Barbara Pym?

Not long ago, I was asked the same question by the Barbara Pym Society and invited to write a short article for their newsletter. The text of that article, which answers your question, can be found on my Felicity & Barbara Pym Blog at http://felicityandbarbarapym.wordpress.com/2011/06/09/291/

In the aforementioned novel, how autobiographical is the character, Professor Mallory Cooper?

I will have to refer readers to my interview by New York Times contributing writer -  in which this question is asked and answered, as I cannot better that answer here. http://bit.ly/vMRYzb 

In the past, how did you balance your thriving academic career, motherhood, and your affiliations with the entertainment  industry?

There wasn’t much need for balance, actually, because these vocations/occupations were consecutive, not concurrent. There was a little overlap when I was doing my Master’s degree and teaching and later when I was working in Hollywood and also teaching, but basically, when my children were young, they were my vocation. Period. When they got a little older, I began to do free-lance writing. I then created a consultancy and worked mostly at home. It was only when they were in high school that I began to teach/work/study full time and my hours were compatible with their schedules. They were a priority, no matter how busy any of us were, and we ate dinner together almost every night throughout even their high school years. When they went to university and left home, my writing career took precedence (in time).

What is your writing process and schedule?

What engages me in the art and the act of writing is the companionship of the words themselves. The process depends on the nature and depth of that companionship. In the beginning of any work, when the project and the words are new (and they are new every time) the process seems more like a self-taught class and requires more structure – a time, a place, a set number of words. Little word-dates. Later, when the relationship between the words/material and me deepens and becomes more intimate, the process takes care of itself – I can’t wait to get up in the morning to inhabit the world I am creating. By the time that happens, I am in limerence (in the most positive definition of that word) with that world and no imposition of artificial structure is necessary. It is all self-propelling – the desire to be with the words. 

Who are some authors who inspire you?

I have addressed the authors I admire elsewhere at length – on my blog and in other interviews and guest blogs, so I’ll just mention a few authors whose work I admire and concentrate on the word, “inspire”.

First of all, almost everything I have read in my life has contributed in some way to my own work – including children’s books, which I still read, English Literature from Beowulf onward, some American literature, and not insignificantly Greek, Latin and Hebrew texts of philosophy and theology in the Catholicism and Jewish traditions that I have studied over the years. Having said that, the authors whose writing has recently influenced mine include Antonia White, AS Byatt and Anita Brookner. These are three writers who have near perfect command of a language that describes interior landscape. Beautifully lucent.

With regard to inspiration, that powerful but delicate symbiosis between two minds, and in some cases, two hearts, there is no doubt that my colleague and friend, Dorian Llywelyn, scholar, professor, theologian, Welsh-American Jesuit, bard, musician, and writer of staggering depth, is a singular inspiration to me.

This is a different thing from influence, which is a more static, dissipated, and distant thing. This kind of inspiration takes the form of its origin, in which there is the dynamic of breathing in(to) and breathing out, generating, sustaining life. Inspiro, expiro. It extends beyond the writerly influence – it  breathes new life into the soul. It makes one hungry, restless and resistant – sighted with extra perception and blinded to all but the force of creation - a force of such magic, such seminal power, that it confers a certain obligation on anyone who employs it to do so with reverence.

Father Llywelyn adds a significant intellectual, creative and spiritual dimension to my life and all I write is transformed by that significance. Put simply, I don’t write the same without him as I do with, or rather because of, him. It’s not that I can’t or don’t write (or haven’t written) a good many things without the benefit of this profound connection but I prefer, vastly, the writing that arises from our confluence. I also come away from each encounter with more to write about.

In another interview, I remarked that what initiated my writing was “arrested experience” – that millisecond when suddenly, something just stops you in your tracks and you forget to breathe for a moment. That’s when I write. I write about that something. This is precisely what happens in an encounter with Father Llywelyn and with his writing – arrested experience. I mean, anyone who has a chapter in his book (Toward A Catholic Theology of Nationality) called “The Value of Thisness” that lucidly, elegantly explores “the heart of each person’s existence” is himself a formidable standard of excellence. I like formidable standards.

Do you have advice for novice writers attempting to sell books?

I do: Read everything industry leader Jane Friedman writes on this topic (and others): www.janefriedman.com Also keep book marketing experts Porter Anderson http://porteranderson.com and Kathy Meis www.bublish.com close to hand as primary resources in this field.

What is your opinion regarding blogs, social media, and the future of the publishing world?

I honestly don’t know enough about the first two to make any useful comment, or at least none that has not been made before. Regarding the third, the sooner that (some) agents and (most) publishers get over the their clubby, twee, 19^th century perception that this is an elite, leisurely gentleman’s profession and realize that they have become a great, creaking, really annoying dinosaur, the better traditional publishing will become. I think that survival for these publishers means a drastic programme of streamlining and creating niches – resulting in fewer companies, smaller lists, better books and faster turnarounds. I’ve been lucky with my publishers and agents, but I know that was a fluke. Too many writers’ experiences, particularly in the last few years, have been the opposite.

Finally, can you share some details about your current projects and plans for the future?

Currently, I have a children’s book with an editor at a large publishing house and another with an agent. I am writing a new one that I can’t talk about right now, which is non-fiction. Then, I am turning the creative part of my PhD dissertation, The Bendithion Chronicles, into a book and the critical part into a couple (or more) scholarly essays.

My husband and I are going to Europe in the fall to lecture at different universities. There is one other book on the horizon, which I am meant to be writing with someone else based on the letters we exchanged. My agent had a look at some of these last year and thinks it should be the priority.

Harrison Solow Bio:

American writer Harrison Solow has been honoured with multiple awards for her literary fiction, nonfiction, cross-genre writing, poetry and professional writing, most notably winning the prestigious Pushcart Prize for Literature in 2008.  A writer and strategic consultant of rare experience, her work spans Hollywood, Academia, Business, Law and Literature. Dr. Solow is one of the two best-selling University of California Press authors of all time (at time of publication), a Notable Alumna of Mills College where she earned an MFA, and holds the rare distinction of a British PhD in English (Letters) with a critical and creative dissertation “Accepted as Submitted: No Changes” from Trinity Saint David in 2011.

She lectures in English and American Literature, Creative, Nonfiction and Cross Genre Writing, Specific Authors, Science Fiction and American Culture, Professional Writing, Philosophy and Theology at a number of universities, colleges, arts and cultural institutions in the United States, Canada and Great Britain.

A former faculty member at UC Berkeley, she accepted a lectureship in the English Department of the University of Wales in 2004 and was appointed Writer in Residence in 2008. She returned to America in 2009.

Dr. Solow is a strong proponent of the traditional Liberal Arts, the Fine Arts and the Utilitarian Arts as separate and equally respectable entities, an advocate for Wales and a patron of literary endeavours.

She is married to Herbert F. Solow, a director & producer and the former Head of MGM, Paramount and Desilu Studios in Hollywood. She has two sons.

Her latest book is Felicity & Barbara Pym: http://amzn.to/Jcnpc9 and http://felicityandbarbarapym.wordpress.com/

Harrison Solow is available for interviews, lectures and workshops. She can be reached through her manager, Simon Rivkin simonrivkin@solowtwo.com

Web pages:

http://redroom.com/author/harrison-solow

and

http://lamp.academia.edu/HarrisonSolow 

Follow Harrison on Twitter: @HarrisonSolow and on Facebook

The Art of Graham Nash

    Ocean Galleries: 9618 3rd Avenue, Stone Harbor, NJ

Q & A with Maureen Orth: Author & Journalist, Special Correspondent for Vanity Fair

1. What inspired you to embark on a career in journalism?

I was so bored with my Masters in Latin American studies classes at UCLA after the Peace Corps that I just flipped through the catalog and J for Journalism was near L for Latin American studies. Thus it began.


2. Is there a specific article that is particularly memorable and why?

I went to Russia and Central Asia and to the Afghan border right after 9/11 to do a long investigative piece on the relationship between terrorism and drugs (VF March, 2002). It was clear to me from my experiences in Colombia that drugs pay for terrorism and no one in the United States or the powers that be in Europe seemed to want to acknowledge this (just as no one in the US is willing to take responsibility for the violent consequences of casual cocaine use.) If we had done so, I believe the last decades’ losses there would have been much less.


3. You've interviewed many notable individuals. Is there one that stands out as extremely intriguing?

Most of the people I have dealt with are pretty layered and complex. I was fascinated by the creativity and fun I had doing Karl Lagerfeld; I was also intrigued by the tragedy of Margaret Thatcher when I got the first interview after she was thrown out of office.


4. What is your process and schedule when meeting a deadline?

First I read all my reporting, then I decide interview by interview what the quotes will be. I discuss the lead with my editor and the overall organization and how many parts the article will fall into. Then, when I feel like I've processed it and can't procrastinate anymore, I start writing. It's easy to keep reporting but it's hard to start writing.

5. How long does it take to write a typical Vanity Fair article?

It really depends on the amount of investigation and reporting necessary. The quickest it’s been from start to finish has been three weeks, some articles can go on for months. But I don't necessarily work on them every day.

6. What are some of the current projects that you are working on?

I have had so much fun this past year doing something different: going all over the world to produce short videos for the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps that are up on a website I helped create: www.peacecorpspostcards.com. I just got back from Southwest China before Christmas and it was one of the most interesting trips I've ever taken. We shot six videos which will start being posted later in the month around Chinese New Years. I am so proud of the work I see these great Peace Corps kids are doing. This past year I’ve been to Mongolia, Morocco, and Colombia. Also if you go to www.MarinaOrthFoundation.org, you will see the work I am doing that has grown out of my original Peace Corps experience. Three schools for over 1200 children, each with their own laptop. They emphasize English, Technology and Leadership and are located around Medellin, Colombia. I'm also about to start a new article for Vanity Fair.


7. How have you managed a busy career and raising your wonderful son, Luke?

I have been very lucky that I've always had sufficient help and that my late husband, Tim Russert, stayed close to home much more than I did, so that there were very few times when at least one of us wasn't at home. My only theory about rearing children is "you've gotta put in the time." It's pretty hard to have a big job, a big social life and be a good parent. Something's got to give.

8. Can you tell the readers a little bit about your educational foundation?

I mentioned the Foundation above but it gives me the most satisfaction of anything I do. When I was in the Peace Corps way back when, I helped build a school that was named after me -- Escuela Marina Orth. In 2005, I was asked by the Colombians to please help them start the first public bi-lingual school. We became the first school in Colombia to have One Laptop Per Child computers for every student at my old school. Now we have three schools, financed through public-private partnerships involving the Colombian Government, private Colombian funds and private US Funds. For example, Procter and Gamble, General Mills, HP, and Chevron have all contributed to the three schools. We also take US volunteers to teach English in case any of your readers are interested! Please visit the website.


9. What advice would you give someone who would like to pursue a career in investigative journalism?

You need a lot of energy, a lot of curiosity and you can't give up easily. You have to be persistent and keep digging. You constantly have to figure out how to get around people saying no. You have to have empathy so people will give you information. My own personal credo is what I dub the EEEPPP Rule - Energy, Enthusiasm, Empathy, Polite, Prepared, Persistent.


10. Who are some of your favorite authors and journalists?

When I was starting out I read everything by Joan Didion, Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe. Now I tend to view it article by article and constantly find gems in Vanity Fair, of course! However, two articles I really loved recently were in the New Yorker. One was by Jane Kramer was about the food foraging phenomenon. The other was simply terrific by Ben McGrath about the Dom Bosco High School football team in New Jersey. I also loved Michael Lewis' piece about the Greek Economy in Vanity Fair about a year ago; thought Nancy Jo Sales VF piece on Courtney Love was just fabulous and was very moved by Christopher Hitchens last column in Vanity Fair before he recently died. So many wonderful writers are my friends that naming them all is impossible. I love reading Maureen Dowd and Janet Maslin in the New York Times. I'm just finishing my good friend Sally Bedell Smith's huge biography of Elizabeth the Queen and about to dive into Mark Whitakers' memoir, My Long Trip Home. Larry McMurtry, particularly everything up to and including Lonesome Dove, are cherished favorites too!

An Invisible Thread: Laura Schroff & Alex Tresnioski

An Invisible Thread (2011): Laura Schroff & Alex Tresniowski

Have you ever been in a large city and wandered by someone who was panhandling on the street? We have all had this experience and blindly walked along into our daily lives. In 1986, Laura Schroff did the same but something moved her to return to the disheveled young man she saw on Broadway Ave in New York City. This small act culminated in a twenty-five year relationship between two people who now call themselves family.

In 1986, Laura Schroff was a busy sales executive working for USA Today when she happened upon 11 year old, Maurice, a poor young boy struggling to eat in the projects of New York City. For some reason, Laura went back and asked Maurice if he wanted to go to McDonalds for a meal. Laura and Maurice continued to meet every Monday at a restaurant or for a home-cooked meal for years. At first, Laura’s friends and family struggled to understand this unusual relationship and tried to deter her from becoming involved in the hopelessness of Maurice’s situation. In one scene, Laura is compelled to look for Maurice when he doesn’t show up for a promised trip to a Mets game. She travels with her neighbor to the Bryant, one of New York City’s worst welfare hotels. When she finds him she encounters Maurice’s mother, Darcella, a woman who is severely addicted to crack. This visit and another to Maurice’s school emphasize the need for an authentic and responsible role model for this impressionable young boy. Laura is compelled to be a mentor to Maurice and teaches him many life skills that we all take for granted. Both parties feel rewarded by their situation.

Throughout the book, Laura’s memories of her traditional childhood are shadowed by her own family problems and are mentioned in alternating chapters. This is a writing method that feels engaging and enhances the message of the book.

As the novel progresses, Maurice becomes an important part of Laura’s extended family and attends family gatherings with her during Christmas and Thanksgiving. As an inner city child, he observes common traditional rituals such as eating at a dinner table, riding his first bike, and seeing a parent comforting a child without abuse. As a reader, I wished this constant interaction between Laura and Maurice would continue to the end of the book but life is not always perfect. Circumstances in both of their lives affect Laura’s relationship with Maurice and become a source of pain for both. As a favor to new readers and I will not spoil the plot outcome.

An Invisible Thread was such a pleasure to read. I finished it in nearly a day in my favorite place to read - riding in the passenger seat of our family car. The memoir is not long and if you enjoy my recommendations, please take a few days to dive into this amazing and inspiring book. My New Year’s resolution includes looking outside of my comfort zone for ways that I might help others. Laura Schroff represents an honorable and poignant example that we are all connected and one small act can be monumental!