Twelve years ago, somehow, I published this piece in The Paris Review Daily. It got some notice from agents wondering if I had a book, but it also netted me a couple of nice notes from other writers. One was Leslie Jamison. This was long before I knew her name, and I think sometimes about how kind it was of her to reach out to me, and how I really should have written her back. She was living in New Haven at the time; the city is small enough that just before all of this happened, she had bought a mattress from my then-boyfriend. We had helped her wrangle it out of his apartment and into the elevator together. 

Another was a guy who we'll just call G, who recognized me, even through the internet, as a bright young thing. (If you've ever been a young woman, you will likely recognize that that designation is not exactly a compliment.) He said we should hang out if he was ever in New Haven. 

At some point he was, in fact, in town, and we went to a bar together and then walked around campus. It was a nice afternoon, only a little bit strange because I couldn't for the life of me figure out if he was going to make a move on me or not. (He didn't.) Instead, we talked about various things, mostly books and writing. A writer had recently published an article about how he didn't read many novels anymore-- he'd gotten too old, they'd stopped being interesting. I said I found this depressing. G said I'd get it when I was in my thirties. By then, he assured me, the world didn't seem quite so interesting anymore.

He was-- is-- seven years older than I am. That gap is less impressive to me now than it was when I was merely 24. But how could I argue with him? I hadn't gotten there yet. Therefore: what did I know.

Anyway, I'm older now than any of us-- G, the article writer, my past self, of course-- was then. Well past my bright young thing era, thank god. And I still like novels as much as I ever did. Most things, really. I find the world a continually interesting place.

Some things you can only find out the long way. But I do reach back to her, sometimes, that little phantom, and murmur: you were right, you know, to think you knew what you liked. 

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Speaking of books! I wrote a profile of Malcolm Harris, who wrote one that I liked very much. 

And I'm going to be talking to a handful of other authors at this year's LA Times Festival of Books! My panel features Isabel Kaplan, Liska Jacobs, Allie Rowbottom, and Rachel Lindsay, who you may remember from... when she was the first Black Bachelorette??? I am an enormous Rachel Lindsay stan, and consider her essay about leaving the franchise required reading for reality TV viewers of any stripe. Anyway, learn more and get a ticket to join us here.