Every time I go to a journalism class, invited by some guy at NYU or Columbia, after the class is over, and I’m about to leave to go to dinner somewhere, somebody comes up to me. “Mr. Talese, can I have your address? I’d like to write to you.” I say, “Listen, I’m here now to talk to you, but I’m
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Dear Strong Christian, How much I’d like to fight with you. But I suppose the truth is, I’m not that concerned. I know you’ll be fine in time, when life does its work and then God does his. I don’t need you to agree with me, and I don’t care about disagreement. I’m not sure what happened, but when did
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I wonder sometimes if I’m paying any attention to what I say or not. A friend texts me and I don’t notice for a while. “You writing today?”I scrunch my nose. I have the most shocking ability to deny reality.I coach authors for a living. I do this because I like it. Also, I don’t really like doing anything else that
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This morning, I headed down to the pond and caught a frog. I'd never have seen her if she hadn't leaped from the wooden bridge. But when she landed amongst the rocks and ferns, I trapped her with the girls' butterfly net. She was big and made no sound, so I assumed her female, an orangey-brown wood frog with a
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John Updike once wrote that “writers walk through volumes of the unexpressed and like snails leave behind a faint thread excreted out of ourselves.” (“The Blessed Man of Boston”) As an editor, I’m fairly gastropod-like myself. I leave my trail of commentary on a manuscript as evidence of where I’ve been (in fact, I may have an even
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