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.
I’m working on the acknowledgments to my new book. I’ve always felt that the acknowledgments are the closest thing to Oscar acceptance speeches that writers get. I’d like to thank my mother, my father, my therapist in Riverdale. I’d like to thank my left foot, Daniel Day Louis, Julia Louise Dreyfus, my hedge fund manager, my hedge hog, my cockapoo. I’d like to thank my pain. I’d like to thank all the people who didn’t believe in me. I’d like to thank the one man who opened a door for me at Grand Central. I’d like to thank my eye surgeon Dr. Craig Sklar. I’d like to thank the woman at his office who did my paperwork. I’d like to thank my personal assistant, my personal trainer, my personal planner, my personal pizza. But most of all I want to thank the Duplass Brothers.
Who do you thank?
Filed under: Books, Memoir, Uncategorized | Tagged: Acknowledgments, Duplass Brothers, Oscars |
Betsy Lerner 
“Thank fuck,” I often say. So, fuck, I guess, mostly.
The great thing about shitting out six cruddy little books a year is you get to thank six different lots of people.
You didn’t believe that, did you? The great thing about shitting out six cruddy little books a year is you get six different lots of money. Thank fuck.
You. For back in the day, for helping me find my posse.
Word. (As you say.)
Double word. xoxo
I’d like to thank the person who said, (three years, three days ago)… “magical thinking is bullshit…get serious…be serious.” Then she rejected me.
Thanks Betsy.
It still stings but it was the best advice ever.
My third grade teacher at the Graham School in Mount Vernon, NY, Mrs. Smith. Life at home was not peachy keen, I was sick a lot and fell behind in school. Back then we had Stamford Achievement Tests (I think) for reading and Mrs. Smith recognized I had a lot of catching up to do to be placed in the appropriate level — the system dictated what color level you were on, not according to your abilities, but how many levels you worked through; you couldn’t go from Red to Green without passing through all the other colors in the rainbow. She worked with me at lunchtime and recess (when I’m sure she’d rather be hanging in the teacher’s lounge instead of with an 8 yr. old) and nurtured in me a lifelong love of reading.
She was cool.
“Who do you thank?”
On any given day, thank you’s abound out of my mouth and in my thoughts. Tis the season for feeling grateful for much, after all.
I love reading acknowledgements. I read them because it’s like personal little tidbits on how the book came to be and who had a hand in it aside from the author.
I’ll always be eternally thankful for those who spoke or wrote a kind word at just the right moment, usually when self-doubt loomed bigger than a pimple on a first date night.
I’d like to thank the individual who coined the term “bat-shit” as in “he’s bat-shit crazy.”
It cannot have been my mother.
Thank you!
everyone. keeps it fair.
writer friends, professional writer friends, family. and funding agencies. my local coffee shop, a couple of inspirations for the characters. that’s about it.
The audience. Without them, we are unrecognizable.
I have no idea. Which doesn’t work because I have to hand them in at some soon point. Have I been gone too long from this blog to ask for help?