Mills Hall October 2, 2010
Worth a closer look
Mills Alumnae Writers' Salon - not the best picture, but you get the idea
Saturday I returned to Mills College where I got my Bachelor’s degree in English. I graduated in 1992, and it’s been almost that long ago since I was last on campus. I was excited to see that the English department is now housed in this grand old building. Mills Hall was originally erected in 1871. Sometimes I wonder if I should take this writing thing more seriously and pursuit an MFA there. Ugg!
Moving on, I’d like to say that I met a wonderful woman at the writers’ salon. Gilena Simons was seated next to me, there presenting her memoir: “A Life Imagined.” Perhaps the organizers put us together because of our subject matter. While my widow is fiction, Gilena unfortunately lived through the sudden and unexpected death of her husband (from a brain aneurysm) in 1998, when they were 28 years old. She couldn’t have been more vivacious, embracing me in thrilled amazement that we had both written about the death of a deeply beloved husband and how that triggered coming to terms with the realities of a pathologically narcissistic mother.
Her memoir is, in fact, a love letter to her husband. “A life Imagined” explains how Gilena was able to move forward, despite crushing grief, to embrace a life her loving husband would have wanted for her.
We have both confronted the stark contrasts between selfish and selfless love. Treading on the sanctity of motherhood is risky business where sometimes “it takes one to know one.” I totally get where she’s coming from. She hasn’t read Pearls My Mother Wore yet, but she has a copy. I hope she finds my fiction as validating as I found her memoir.
We are now Facebook friends. Although she lives in Southern California, I’m happy to have her as a new friend. We’ve exchanged reference titles that had helped us on our respective journeys. She suggested I read “Will I Ever Be Good Enough” by Dr. Karly McBride, which I’m currently in the middle of and getting a lot out of. And I told her about “Understanding the Borderline Mother” by Dr. Christine Lawson.
Looking forward, tomorrow I’ll be participating in something that is being called an “Open Floor” at 7 P.M. inside Book Passage in Marin. Newly published authors have been invited to sit and share their experiences with publishing in today’s market. There will be a Q & A session, wine, cake and other goodies, and an overall festive literary vibe. It’s open to anyone who would like to attend, so please come and bring friends. This is where anyone who is intrigued by authorship and/or publishing could have their questions addressed, if not answered. It can’t be said enough, Book Passage is on the writer’s side. They do everything they can think of to support writers. Big Thank yous to all who work there.
Book Passage is the last event on my literary calendar, unless…one thing will lead to another, as has been the case all along.
Have a great week, and I’ll post again next Friday.
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