As I was walking back from our writers’ Virtuous Circle lunch at the Algonquin, I happened upon the Veterans Day parade. I took a photo of these young men, so young, really, as they marched by and I felt tears spring to my eyes. A combination of deeply complicated emotions surged forth. I am a WWII veteran’s daughter. I love the US Armed Forces. I hate war. And I thought of my good friend, Larry Heinemann, Vietnam veteran, writer, and National Book Award winner, who says that for him, Veterans Day is a day of mourning. He also says that when he got home from the war in Vietnam he was so radical he couldn’t leave his house. On Veterans Day, he stays home and contemplates humanity and doesn’t like to talk on the phone.

But I have some good news to share this Veterans Day, news that is deeply important to me.

Open Road Media is going to reissue an unexpurgated, uncut, uncensored edition of FROM HERE TO ETERNITY in 2011, the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor and my dad’s 90th birthday. This will be the edition my father always wanted published, with the swear words he was forced to cut returned to the text; and with the homosexual sex scenes also back in place.

What amazes me is that it’s 60 years later and our government and military are still waffling about allowing gay people to be honest about their sexuality. I think this is a travesty and so did my father – 60 years ago!

I honor you on this Veterans Day, Larry Heinemann, and all the other veterans who still feel the scars – physical or psychological – that never seem to completely heal.

It’s sunset and Kevin and I take the dogs for a walk in Karl Schurz Park while Eyrna is at her martial arts class. This is my favorite time of day, twilight, and a huge amber harvest moon floats above the buildings on the other side of the East River. We walk past the children’s playground, where we haven’t been at all lately. Through the tall fence hang the bright red harnesses of the baby swings, empty at this darkening hour, and I say, “Do you remember when we put her on those swings for the first time?” Of course, he remembers. She was only a couple of months old, fearless even then. She laughed and laughed, not wanting to stop.

We pass the toddler jungle gym, painted in primary red and blue, with its curving wood bridge that seemed such an obstacle to her at eleven months, when she first stumbled across it without holding on. I was scared she’d fall and tear open her face, but I let her do it on her own, trying not to hover. Across the way stands the elementary school kids’ jungle gym, colorful scaffolding with obstacles and levels and ropes and rope ladders, and a twisting shiny slide.

“Remember when I let her climb that one?” Kevin points, “And you were scared to death?” I was scared to death, it’s true. Having only this one child, I looked around to see if any of the other mothers or nannies were concerned. But Kevin never cared what other people thought. She was the smallest child on the jungle gym, and the older kids weren’t above shoving her out of the way. But still, she wasn’t afraid. Kevin stood underneath, watching, not saying a word. Would he be able to catch her if she fell? I had faith he would. But still, I held my breath.

She’s too old now even for the middle-schoolers’ park, which stands slightly away from the others, surrounded by its own gate. Ah, the hours we spent in there, watching, staying out of her games until she wanted us to play some part: tick-tack-toe opponent; pretend vendor; Frankenstein; time-keeper. Kevin reminds me of the day she made the transition to the big kids’ swings. “Do you remember?” I laugh. I remember that he pushed her so high in the air and she kept shouting, “Higher, Daddy! Higher!” until the chain ropes that held the swing lost their tautness and I thought she was going to go flying over the fence.

She’ll be starting high school next year. Where did the time go?

“We did a good job, didn’t we?” I ask Kevin.
“I think we did.”

I grew up rich, in Paris, in a town house on the Seine. Eyrna had none of that. But we traveled a great deal, and took her with us, everywhere. We went to the Venice Film Festival and stayed in a Renaissance palazzo as guests of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory. We went to San Diego and swam with dolphins.

She saw the sun set from the top of Montmartre as the nuns sang hymns inside the cavernous church, their high, innocent voices carried forth on the still air. “Eyrna,” I said, opening my arm in a wide circle, the city spread out below us, “I give you Paris.”

Once, a crotchety super down the street yelled at her while she was walking the dogs by herself. He scared her so badly she wouldn’t walk on his side of the street anymore. Kevin went out there and told the super if he ever scared his daughter again, he’d beat the crap out of him. The super said he had a gun. Kevin said, “Good, I look forward to the law suit.”

Next year she’ll start high school. We’ve told her many times, We’ll always be here if you need us. Even at three o’clock in the morning. If you’re ever scared, we’ll come get you. Only four more years and she’ll be off to college.

Soon, we’re going to have to step back and say, “Eyrna, we give you the world.”

This morning, I got to make the phone call to the winner of the $10,000 James Jones First Novel Fellowship.

Every time we enlist a new judge, we give that person the privilege of making the call. I didn’t judge last year because my book was coming out and I was on the road; novelist Nina Solomon graciously took my place. She thus had the honor of phoning the 2009 winner, Tena Russ. Nina, who also teaches in the Wilkes MFA Program, said bringing Tena the good news made her feel happy for an entire month. It is one of the few times we, as teachers, as writers, get to feel powerful, as if we are moving boulders out of a struggling writer’s path. Nothing guarantees the novel will find a publisher, but our list of success stories is long. Our 2007 winner, MY NAME IS MARY SUTTER, was published last spring to critical acclaim and was chosen as one of Oprah’s top summer reads.

Our past winners include Leslie Schwartz, who won in 1997 for JUMPING THE GREEN, which became a best-seller. I never got to meet Leslie, because during that year’s James Jones Literary Society symposium, I was nursing my newborn, my only child.

Greg Hrbek, the 1996 winner for THE HINDENBERG CRASHES NIGHTLY, went on to become a Hodder Fellow at Princeton, and one of his short stories was included in The Best American Short Stories of 2009, edited by Alice Sebold.

Mary Kay Zuravleff of Washington DC won the 1994 contest for her wonderful novel THE FREQUENCY OF SOULS, which went on to be published to rave reviews. Her second novel, THE BOWL IS ALREADY BROKEN, was published in 2005 by Farrar Straus & Giroux. She told me winning the Fellowship changed her life. These are just a few.

Earlier today, upon having made our decision, I learned the name of this year’s winner. Gina Ventre. Up until that point, I only knew the working title and log number of her novel: #170, MOON’S EXTRA MILE. I called her and left a message to call me back as soon as possible. Then I sent an email, realizing most people check their emails much more frequently than their mobile phones. I received a response in about 5 minutes. Gina wrote that she was at work and couldn’t take a break to call me back until 1:30 PM. Where are you? I wrote back. She replied that she was at work behind a desk, at a hospital in Ohio.

At 1:30 on the nose, Gina called. I told her she’d won the James Jones First Novel Fellowship. Dead silence. Finally, in a timid murmur, she asked, “The whole thing?”
“The whole thing,” I replied.
After another silence, she said, “Holy shit.” Then she seemed to be catching her breath and asked me to hold on a second while she tried to process this news. “Can I tell people? I mean, is this for real?”
“It’s for real and yes, you can tell people.”

When I called Robin Oliveira and told her she’d won, she wept for 5 minutes straight before I could get a word in. She told me she’d given up. She was about to throw the book away. Now she’s on Oprah’s summer list.

When my daughter asks me about my father, who died long before she was born, I try to draw a three-dimensional picture of him, but my memories are confused. I can’t remember now what is purely true, and what has been embellished in my years of storytelling. One thing I know is true: he loved young writers. He wanted to help them. In 1973, he wrote a letter to a general he’d befriended while he was in Vietnam during the war, writing a series of articles for the New York Times Magazine. He told the general to support his Hippie son, who wanted to become a writer. He told the general that it took as long to become an accomplished writer as it did to become a doctor or a lawyer. Why not give his boy the same chance he would give him if he was in graduate school for medicine? It’s because of this letter that I started the James Jones First Novel Fellowship. This link will take you to the Wilkes University site for information on applying next year.

And Nina Solomon was exactly right. Having the privilege of making that phone call to Gina Ventre, the 2010 winner, will keep me flying for at least a month.

Ruth Nelda Gonzalez and Me at My Books & Books Reading

I just got home from my trip to Florida. While snow kept me from attending the first leg of my journey at the Jacksonville BookMania Festival, I did make it to Miami and to Boca Raton.

In Miami, I read at Books & Books and received a warm welcome. The room was full, mostly due to Connie Ogle’s excellent feature article on the front page of Sunday’s 2/28 Miami Herald Arts section: http://bit.ly/bgQiyi

Sometimes it’s difficult to feel so exposed, because my memoir does disclose some pretty personal stuff about my past and my difficult relationship with my mother. But then the most amazing, wondrous things happen if I remain open.

On one side, I am at times blindsided by the rage and resentment from extended family members, who think this kind of stuff — like alcoholism and abuse (verbal, physical, psychological) should be “kept in the family” and never aired in public. This is a shame-based reaction to mental illness that I totally reject. Interestingly, the people who are angry about the book NEVER come forth and tell me they’re angry; they pass the message on in a back-handed, back-channel way, through other family members, or friends, who in turn feel compelled to pass the piss and vinegar on to me. Truth be told: I couldn’t care less. They’re not even my relatives, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t take on other people’s shame any more. I’m done with that.

But, the most amazing result of this book for me is the complete strangers I’ve met at my readings and at book fairs and through email who not only thank me for writing this book, but share their deepest fears and pain with me. This is something I never expected, a gift that goes so far beyond our human fear of shame and dishonor. I am surprised and blown away every time. And every time I begin to feel drained from the strain of deflecting the resentment and anger, someone approaches me out of the blue, writing me an email, or showing up at a reading, or befriending me at an event, and sharing a story that recharges my depleted batteries and urges me to go forward on this weird journey of healing.

At the Brandeis University fundraiser lunch in Boca Raton, five of us women writers spoke to a gathering of 500 women (and 5 men). Dr. Qanta Ahmed, a Muslim woman of Pakistani origin, shared about working as a doctor for 2 years in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. She focused on the similarities between women of all religions; she talked about the commonalities between us all, not the differences. She was a true ambassador for peace. Lisa See, whose great-grandfather was a Chinese immigrant, talked about her family history and the history of the Chinese immigrant experience and how these are the rich sources from which she mines her stories. Thrity Umrigar, a Parsi writer originally from India, shared her childhood experiences growing up a Zoroastrian in a predominantly Hindu society and the experience of being an “outsider,” which is shared by so many all over the world. Barbara Delinsky shared about her incredibly interactive relationship with her readers, and how her topics are often culled from women’s issues in the news.

Thrity Umrigar, Lisa See, Dr. Qanta Ahmed
After the luncheon, a stranger approached me and asked me for my opinion: Did I think she was an alcoholic? She began to tell me her story. Her close friend, now sober, apparently told her she had a drinking problem. She wanted to know if I agreed. I told her alcoholism is a self-diagnosed disease; I couldn’t know and couldn’t say. But I suggested she try to stop drinking for 3 months. She said she had no desire to stop. Well then, I said, if it hasn’t affected your life in a negative way, what’s the problem? The problem was the friend who had frightened her.

A little while later, several others came over and told me quietly that they were also in recovery, and were delighted by my outspoken approach to the disease of alcoholism.

But really, the coolest thing that happened was I made a friend. Dr. Qanta Ahmed and I came back on the same flight to NYC. We talked the whole way. We are going to try to bring a group of American women writers to Riyadh to speak to Saudi women as ambassadors of peace. What a world. I am just happy to be alive.

Yesterday my MFA student Lynn Bryant at Wilkes University read from her Masters thesis in front of a gathered crowd of her peers and other instructors. She read for ten minutes, a scene in which on the surface, very little happens: a couple has mint tea in a hotel restaurant in Fes, Morocco. But in this scene everything happens. The young man is Moroccan, A Berber who has chased this African American girl from Meknes, where they met in the restaurant of a different hotel, where Alae, the young man, is the maitre d’ — a pretty good job by Moroccan standards. Alae has brought his mother and sister to Fes to meet Willow, as if this is already a formal engagement, as if they’re already committed to each other. He has given Willow a family heirloom, a ring that in his mind binds her to him. Willow is not sure whether she should have refused the ring, run away; and now, she is deeply charmed by his wild sincerity, this impetuous show of affection. The scene shifts between their two point of views. They’ve known each other less than 24 hours and they are about to invest all their hopes, their fears, their dreams, in each other. She takes his hand and allows him to lead her into the lobby, where his mother is waiting.

I can’t stop thinking about this scene this morning. I am wondering if in a world where urgency — gaming, reality TV, and things like that — have taken over our appetite for entertainment, if a story like this, a story so smoothly written, so beautifully internal — a story about the clash between Christian and Muslin cultures — will be appreciated by the general reading public. I worry about this. I want this book to find a publisher and an audience. I think this book is very important.

I received this email from PEN and felt compelled to share it with you:

Dear Friends,

As you have heard, the Chinese government has sentenced our colleague Liu Xiaobo to 11 years in prison in China.

Tomorrow’s press event/rally to protest the conviction of Liu Xiaobo in China will take place ON THE FRONT STEPS OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY, 42nd Street at 5th Avenue, at 11:00 a.m.

We believe this is both a good way to underscore PEN’s commitment to this case and to ring in a year that marks the 50th anniversary of PEN’s organized efforts to defend imprisoned and persecuted writers around the world.

Please join us for this important show of solidarity.

The event will take place at 11 a.m. at a convenient midtown Manhattan location—we will e-mail final details tomorrow. We will gather at the location at 10:45 a.m., and we will have posters of Liu Xiaobo available for all PEN Members to hold during the event, which will include very short readings from Liu’s work and statements by Anthony Appiah and other PEN board members.

More details on the program appear below. Can you please let us know as soon as possible if you can join us for this event? Please RSVP to lara@pen.org, and plan on arriving at 10:45 a.m. to gather together. If you are not in New York City, and would like to hold an event in your area, please contact us for information and materials.

Many thanks, and all best wishes for the New Year,

K. Anthony Appiah
Steve Isenberg
Larry Siems

This Thursday, New Year’s Eve, PEN will hold an outdoor press event in midtown Manhattan to demand the release of Liu Xiaobo, who was sentenced on Christmas Day to 11 years in prison for his writings in China.

The press event will feature several prominent Members of PEN American Center reading short passages from Liu’s work. The event begins promptly at 11 a.m. and will last about ½ hour.

The event rings in a year that marks the 50th anniversary of PEN’s activism on behalf of writers who are jailed or face persecution because of their work. Joseph Brodsky, Wole Soyinka, Vaclav Havel, Jose Revueltas, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Alicia Portnoy, Salman Rushdie, Orhan Pamuk, and Taslima Nasreen, are just a few of the hundreds of writers PEN has freed or defended over the years.

There are currently almost 1,000 writers on PEN’s list of writers and journalists in danger because of their work. Leading the list is Liu Xiaobo, one of China’s most prominent writers and a past president and member of the Independent Chinese PEN Center, which is doing on-the-ground PEN advocacy in China. Liu was convicted of “inciting subversion of state power” for co-authoring “Charter 08,” a petition calling for political and human rights reforms in China, and for seven sentences in five articles he published on the internet that are critical of Chinese authorities.

PEN American Center President Kwame Anthony Appiah called his 11-year sentence “a scandal” and “a mockery,” and PEN Members around the world have vowed to step up efforts to win his release.

Mr. Bill Canegata, Sixth Dan Black Belt, passed away yesterday, December 9, 2009, exactly three years to the day after Anna Bahceci, George Wimpfheimer, and I passed our Black Belt tests.

Mr. Bill lived with cancer for many years. He was a man of great strength who knew how to control pain and discomfort. He never complained. Though Mr. Bill could no longer instruct us, he still showed up at the do-jang every day and watched us progress toward our Black Belts. He gave us advice and helped us with our forms. He came to our promotion test and sat and watched, calm and still as a boulder. When the test was over, he presented us with our new Black Belts and tied them around our waists.

In 1996, my childhood friend Sandra Isham Vreeland died of AIDS after living with HIV for close to fifteen years. She contracted the disease after receiving a blood transfusion. She had two children, and fought to stay alive for them. She died on my birthday, August 5th. I drove out to Sagaponack, LI, for her memorial service. Her mother, Sheila, was also a good friend of mine and I approached her and murmured that I felt horrible that Sandra had died on my birthday. Sheila looked at me with her penetrating, calm blue eyes and said that there could be no greater honor. “After such a long fight,” she said, “she chose your birthday to let go and finally find peace. That was her birthday gift to you.” Sheila probably never knew the enormous impact her words had on me. What amazed me most was that she was able to offer such comfort when she herself must have been in an agony of grief. But Sheila always believed in a power greater than all of us, in some kind of greater meaning and other planes of existence that we cannot perceive. I decided at that moment that I would try to look at death the way Sheila did, and not the way I was taught to, which was with terror and fear.

There is most definitely a weird synchronicity at play in my life. My father’s best friend, Willie Morris, was buried on my birthday in 1999. My godfather, Buddy Bazelon, passed away a few days before my birthday and on the night of August 5th, 1995, we were sitting shiva in my godmother’s apartment. One week later, Kevin and I got married. Thanks to Sheila Isham, I chose to accept these moments as an honor, rather than some kind of punishment, or karmic retribution.

So it seems only appropriate that Mr. Bill would leave us on December 9th, the day Anna, George, and I passed our Black Belt test. Almost everyone we started with, even those who went on and tested for their Black Belts, have left the do-jang. Not us. We persevere. Not in small part because of Mr. Bill and his courage, and the way he taught us to show up, even when we were sad, or sick, or in emotional pain.

In fact, I think I’ll suit up and go today. Spend an hour with Mr. Luis Sevilla, who replaced Mr. Bill as our instructor, and went at least twice a week to visit Mr. Bill in his last months. Another wonderful, honorable man.

A High School Student’s Response to LIES MY MOTHER NEVER TOLD ME

I just received the following letter from a fifteen year old student in Illinois. I was so moved by it I thought I’d share it with you. Jessica is a brave young woman and I’m amazed by the candor and honesty of her letter. I wish I’d been this self-aware and fifteen.

“Dear Kaylie Jones,

“In today’s world, there are so many setbacks and obstacles in life that it is difficult to maintain the feeling that “it’ll all work out in the end.” There are many things that make me doubt that I am strong enough to deal with the curve balls thrown at me and to cope with the cards I am dealt.
The challenges that we are faced with, or rather, the manner in which we deal with them, is what shapes our character and defines what sort of people we are. As I reflect on your memoir, I see the reckless and defiant girl who began drinking early in life profoundly changed by the end of the book after she has stayed sober for nearly twenty years and has had a child to be responsible for. The challenge you had to overcome was alcoholism. Mine is diabetes.
I have had this disease since I was ten years old, and my father has always told me that I haven’t fully accepted it, to which I have always answered him, “Of course I have; that’s crazy.” Only, I didn’t admit that it was a problem. No, everything was just fine – I thought it was no big deal to skip medicine here and there, or not check my blood sugars because I didn’t feel like it at the moment. But whether I admitted it or not, my poor control of my diabetes was affecting me – blurry vision, sick days, etc. But all along, my frame of mind was, “Well, I’m still alive, so it isn’t really a problem. …”
Something had to change, or things would get even worse. However, as I realized while reading your memoir, you cannot deal with a problem until you have accepted that there is one. As that famous Alcoholics Anonymous prayer says: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
I don’t truly know who I am yet. My life is just beginning, brand new and full of potential and possibility. I cannot control diabetes – I don’t know why I got it, and I can’t get rid of it. But I can control my diabetes. I can take the medicine. I can check the blood sugars. I can make healthier choices. Just as the young woman realizes in your memoir, I don’t want to leave this world with any regrets about not making a different choice … a better one. I want to lead a life that anyone could look back on with pride and satisfaction.
Because of your book, I underwent a process. I have accepted that I cannot change the fact that I have an illness; but I will maintain the courage to keep fighting it every day. The effect it has on me can change. Reading your memoir has given me hope and the wisdom to know that I can control how to become the kind of person I want to be.”

–Jessica Elliott