When I set out to learn about my mother's bridge club, the Jewish octogenarians behind the matching outfits and accessories, I never expected to fall in love with them. This is the story of the ladies, their game, their gen, and the ragged path that led me back to my mother.CONGRATULATIONS TO STACY HORN ON HER PUBLICATION DATE
SHE HAS GRACIOUSLY ANSWERED MY OBNOXIOUS QUESTIONS BELOW IN
AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW FOR BETSY’S BLOG FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE
1) Do singing and writing have anything in common?
Both give me moments of panic where I think: who am I kidding, I can’t do this! I suck. And then I write and sing anyway and feel sheer bliss as a result.
2) How do you know when an idea can become a book, like singing in the choir?
When my agent tells me it can. Also, it has to be a subject that I know will consume me for a couple of years. To the point where I have to tear myself away to sleep, eat, or pet a cat. If I can get like that about a book I know I will do a decent job.
3) Do you think writers would be happier if they wrote together?
A vision of the apocalypse just went through my head.
4) What do hate most about the publishing process?
Oh god the answer to this is SO easy: self-promotion. I was raised to believe this kind of behavior is unseemly and in very bad taste. I accept that I must do what I can and I do, believe me, but afterwards, like TODAY, I collapse into the most intense self-loathing.
5) Do you have good agent?
I have the best agent. And the smartest agent. And the prettiest agent. In fact, I should go all Misery on her ass and not let anyone else have her!! Best part is her editing advice.
Contest (top three winners will receive a free copy of Imperfect Harmony): If singing is close to god, what is writing close to?
p.s. I know I owe the Nine Years Under books to winner — sorry for delay.
Filed under: Uncategorized |
Betsy Lerner 
God’s scrotum.
Too bad no one is as funny as we are, Betsy.
“If singing is close to god, what is writing close to?”
Masturbation: shameful, solitary, with hours of exhausted, narcissistic circling for every ten seconds of tepid satisfaction.
Writing is a conversation with God
(assuming God means Buddha-Universe-Walmart-Etc)
Transcendental regurgitation.
“If singing is close to god, what is writing close to?”
Why does this give me palpitations like a GRE practice question? Anyway, here are a few tries:
1. A descant to god’s song.
2. Insanity.
3. Everything.
Terrific interview! Congrats, Stacy!
Holy (God), I forgot to congratulate you, Stacy! I’ve actually added the book to my Amazon cart and can’t wait to read it. Interesting the way it’s described now and how it was blurbed on PM when sold. Sounds like editing! Both takes get me interested.
Congratulations from me, too, Stacy! It sounds like a fascinating read – especially since I’m seriously considering re-joining a community choir after about a decade away.
Singing is to god as writing is to Sisyphus
i.e. condemnation to eternal, futile labor that you can never get quite right
Or never get quite wrong.
If singing is close to God, writing is close to …mothers-in-law: guilt, self-loathing, the not-over-good-enough club.
The edge.
It’s like being a lonely kid, sitting on the floor with her Big Chief notebook, wondering where in the hell everybody went.
Congratulations Stacy!!!
Big Chief!
“If singing is close to god, what is writing close to?”
A confession where you are the only one listening.
“If singing is close to god, what is writing close to?”
Me, the self, the many me’s.
That’s so easy…if singing is close to God, writing is close to the Devil. But then they’re both parts of ourselves anyway. (And it’s really cool when you can sing what you write!)
If singing is close to God, what is writing close to?
A Devil Dog and a glass of ice cold milk.
“If singing is close to god, what is writing close to?”
the reason why
The lay of the land on a summer day when a storm cloud breeze kicks up the dust and rustles the tall grass before the distant thunder and first flash of lightning illuminates the space behind closed eyes.
If singing is close to God, then writing is close to God’s tag sale.
Congrats, Stacy. Really attractive book cover, too.
If singing is close to God, writing is close to Judas.
Thank you for all the congratulations! But these are so good I’m going to hate myself INTENSELY for a month.
First, congratulations Stacy!!!!
Second, a disclaimer. There is no way I can beat some of these answers, but I always like to try.
“If singing is close to god, what is writing close to?”
Atheism. Because sometimes you believe in nothing.
I am so excited to read this book that I can barely focus on the question. My daughter’s high school chorus experience probably saved her life. But that’s another story.
It might be too late to enter but here goes:
Singing : God
Writing : Love (which is as close to heaven and hell as it gets)
Congratulations, Stacy!
Writing is the storm and shelter from it. Sometimes the sky and horizon are lost, but press on, sometimes steering true.
Exit 11 on the NJ Turnpike?
No, that makes no sense, but neither does “Singing is close to God.” Is Singing a place? Maybe Sing-Sing is close to God? But God isn’t a place. Singing brings you closer to God? Is that what that sentence means? In which case, my answer stands. Writing gets you somewhere, but not necessarily anywhere special.
case in point
amphetamine overdose
Writing is close to a tragic comedy that takes us on a thrill ride of every emotion which obviously is sprinkled with insanity.