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SHARON: I remember sitting with you on a couch at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, talking about the books we were working on, as authors at colonies do, and bit-by-bit the confessions started to come out (I don’t remember who confessed first, do you?): both of us had been writing for over twenty years, and neither of us had published a book. I had written two unpublished novels and was starting a third; you had written even more…we’d both had some early encouragement that didn’t pan out. So I was pretty discouraged, and also struggling a bit with feelings of shame. I knew famous writers from the New York writerly scene (briefly dating one Pulitzer Prize winner and sharing coffees and dinners over the years with others); many of my best friends had published a few books already, to great acclaim. I remember thinking, what was wrong with me? Then I met you and your work was good — you read a short story for the residents at the colony — and yet you seemed to be in the same situation….so it was confusing and also oddly encouraging.
