Announcing a program I have helped to develop––the Anne Sexton Fellowship at McLean Hospital! Start your engines. See the application here, and download below. Email completed applications to annesextonfellowship@harvard.mclean.edu.
The chance of a lifetime!
Siobhan has like, way too much on her plate, because she’s always judging existential competitions (don’t ask), dealing with the commissions for my micrographic art, and answering hate mail. So––I need a new assistant! Part time, probably two hours a day, and some on-call hours. Your sole job is to stand nearby while I write and find––with haste!––the book I need from my library. Sometimes I’ll know the titles, but more often than not, you’ll be given this type of prompt: “It’s a fat, sort of pinkish paperback and the word ‘waltz’ is in the title.” I’ll take the applications for this one––I’ve sent Siobhan on vacation.
I received a notice for penis enlarging pills from Mrs. Nicole Diver, of Tender is the Night. I’ve never been so tempted to click on the link.
While on vacation with my family in Bermuda, I inadvertently came up with the most genius game since Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon: Pullman vs. Paxton! Up tonight, level one––basic IMDB info. Which Bill P. was in the flick? Score yourself below.
Let’s play!
1. Spaceballs
2. Lola Versus
3. Titanic
4. The Grudge
5. Mighty Joe Young
6. Boxing Helena
7. The Terminator
8. Brokedown Palace
9. True Lies
10. Newsies
DON’T PEEK!
Answers:
1. Pullman, 2. Pullman, 3. Paxton, 4. Pullman, 5. Paxton, 6. Paxton, 7. Paxton, 8. Pullman, 9. Paxton, 10. Pullman
Between 0-3 correct: Steerage Class
Sorry, you’re just not ready for the Paxton vs. Pullman big leagues just yet.
Between 4 and 7 correct: Pizza the Hut
Well done! Grab yourself another wife.
Between 8 and 10 correct: You’ll Be Back
Wowee, you really know your stuff! Advance to the next level, “Who Said It: Quotes by Bill P.”
I’m on leg three of a four-leg journey––a tour, if you will––up in Boston researching a piece on Anne Sexton. Today, I visited McLean Hospital, Sexton’s old house in Weston, and a school I was obsessed with when I went through my “free education” phase in high school (this was mainly because I was jealous of kids who didn’t have to take science.) Finally back in my weird B&B––the proprietor is trying so hard to make it charming New England, but it has a slight edge of trailer park––I’m thinking again about how writers, or at least this one, can’t go to therapy. I mean, they can, but in my brief return to therapy earlier this year, I realized about how often I would notice my therapist’s face blanch when she realized I was about to talk about my writerly problems again. What I need is a mentor, an older, professional writer who can advise me as to when to press editors and when to back off, what topics are bankable and which ones aren’t, when productivity is good and when you’ve exhausted your audience for the moment, and so forth. If someone can do this for me, all I can offer is to pay it forward, and provide such a service for a young upstart once I hit a nice stride. I’m guessing that will be in, oh, twenty to thirty years.
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