Melanie Lee
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Joyce, you do a beautiful job in capturing the tensions Judy negotiates and resolves. If you can put these snippets into the memoir (the table scene is partly there already) I would be so happy to read them. Thanks for these pieces.
Susan, these are my opening comments, not really different from how I felt upon finishing this submission. I loved reading it. There is so much going on here, this description of Anne’s morning. So many possibilities for the furtherance of the plot – I can’t wait to see where it goes. I love all the details here, so ripe. See below
I have been working somewhat on the next installment, and was just doing that when my stepmother called to wish Eliza a happy birthday (today! 16) and she told me about the biopsy.
Dear Everyone,
I am not going to be able to submit this week. I’m having a week similar to Susan’s last week (perfectly described, BTW, and I’d also like to read your piece if you don’t mind.) Plus the dog has puss in his eye. Vet. Ad nauseum. Also, I just found out my stepmother is going for a biopsy for a lymph node on Friday.
Joyce, I think this is a perfect epilog. As I said in my endnote, I think your readers would appreciate a description of what has happened with Judy’s art since her death, but I would not leave any of this out. Not at all, not at all. The summary of what you’d hoped for, and what you got, and the context you make for it: it’s beautiful.
Last week, after I read your note about Frank Maresca, I went looking for examples of Judy’s art. They’re beautiful. Did Frank keep any?
Also, when I saw Judy’s hat, I recognized it from your writing. Bravo.
Joyce, here’s a page of images. Thanks for asking about plantains — I learned that “Broadleaf Plantain” is what they’re called.
Susan, I love this passage especially when Anna’s voice – sharp and short – rises. I like knowing that’s at stake here, I want to know how she FEELS about what she’s thinking, and that will come out in the way she expresses it. So many wonderful passages, see the comments.
Joyce, I loved both of these pieces:
#1) I ike this written description of how your mother and sister were alike. I know this is a memoir, and we’re supposed to show, but I confesss : sometimes it’s nice being told, and there’s a lot of showing mixed in with the telling. That said, as I went through it, I kept finding places in which I wanted to know the story, as you’ll see from the comments. Tell me more!#2) I like your poem a lot ; First of all, that worry about forgetting. It reminds me of my own mother, I guess at bottom all our conversations were about this, one way or another. I’m going to keep this in mind while I work on the memoir. This is powerful stuff. Specific comments are below.
Ladies, I have to say I was in a really bad mood, because I hate working after 8:00, but my mood improved dramatically when I started commenting on your work. Thanks for lifting me out of my bad mood.
Joyce, my husband was just wondering if Frank Maresca is handling her work. He says that’s the kind of work Frank handles. I am actually on a first-name basis with Frank, though we haven’t talked in years. He was one of two people who called me after my hysterectomy for ovarian cancer fifteen years ago. He told me I was going to overcome this, which I did. I had a very lucky prognosis, he’d gone through something much harder. His call to me that afternoon was a marvel. That was the summer I met Elizabeth at the Gotham Writers Workshop online course in Memoir. The rest, as they say, is history, except that the sweetest part of it was that Elizabeth came out to Fort Green to meet me since I was only traveling to Manhattan for chemo.
Joyce, I live in Ft. Green, not far from the Brooklyn Museum! What’s her name? When was the show? Etc.
Melanie
A restart of the hardware scene, plus two others. I keep going back and forth in the time, everything here is in the past, though close to the original point of view. It’s just how it came out. I do not know whether or not anything I will include any musing from my current perspective in the submissions I am making during the salon. I think they will be added in, later, when I have a sense of their direction. I think maybe as footnotes, a la Oscar Wao, or future telescope, a la Jennifer Egan.
