IN THIS LETTER:

* A pie-making lesson with Josh Brolin

* My mother’s second movie appearance (sort of)

* An invitation to come tell your own stories at Lake Atitlan

* And a (very un-movie-star-like) video featuring a very hard story

Dear Friends,

Four years ago this summer, I holed up in a little cabin writing space at The MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, where I dreamed up the story of a lonely and troubled single mother—Adele—living with her 13-year-old son in a small New Hampshire town, and the unlikely love affair she embarks on over a long, hot Labor Day weekend with a man on the run by the name of Frank.  I wrote the novel over the course of a handful of days—just before Labor Day weekend, as it happened.  I felt I had to write fast because it was almost as if I was watching a movie of the story in my head, and I had to find out how it turned out.  The only way to do so: to finish my novel.  I called it Labor Day.

Now, I am a pretty messy baker, and some of my practices (like reaching my hand into the sugar canister, and flinging flour around with a certain joyful abandon) do not bear much resemblance to how a professional chef or food stylist would be likely to operate.  Susan, the food stylist, seemed like a lovely person, but a couple of times, during my pie lesson, I could see her wince almost imperceptibly, at my methods.  But Josh Brolin was a natural, with great hands for pie, as you will see for yourself in the movie, and most importantly, just the right carefree attitude.  (O.K. I’ll admit here:  I adored this man. If you have a hard time understanding how a single woman, approached by a bleeding man at a back-to-school shopping trip with her son, would agree to take this man home with her—you will understand, once you see Josh Brolin playing the role of Frank.)

He’s a good-looking man.  But more important: a good pie baker.  There may have been a few tense moments when we took his first pie effort (peach) out of the oven, and served up the slices. 

But if it looked a little funkier than the Martha Stewart style of pastry, that’s a good thing.  Pie made by a convict recently escaped from the state penitentiary, with the law on his back, and Kate Winslet at his elbow distracting him, should look a little off-balance.  Just so long as it tastes good.  This one was a particularly fine example of a pie, if I do say so myself.   

The next morning, I was brought to a little trailer to try possible costume choices for my scene.  Since the time period here was early eighties, these featured a kind of pants (pleated) that I haven’t worn (or missed) in thirty years, and a variety of unattractive blouses.  The most fun was getting my hair done in 1980’s style (not, thankfully, a perm, though I got a couple of those back in the day) and 80’s makeup.  Then I was whisked off to the local supermarket, where the shelves had been stocked with products whose labels were specially printed with 1980’s-design labels.  All for a scene that will run, in the film, for approximately seven seconds.  For all the time I spent getting made up and coiffed, you may not see more than a fleeting glimpse of me in the movie—but if you spot the pocketbook I carry in the movie—and if you remember the briefcase I carried in the movie version of To Die For—you may understand what I mean when I tell you that Labor Day will represent my mother’s second major motion picture appearance.  (And if anyone reading this is shocked, I will simply assure you:  My mother would have laughed.)

While we’re on the subject of mothers and baking (well, we were on that subject, a while back), I want to mention a little essay of mine, out this month in Eating Well magazine.  This one is called “My Inheritance”.  In some families, that might refer to a piece of property or stocks.  For me, it meant my mother’s recipe card box.  My mother has been dead for 23 years now, but when I pull a card out of the box, I can still see the splatters from cake batter or some sauce or other.  When I do, I know how it is I came to be a messy cook…I am the daughter of a woman who never entirely trusted food that came out of a too-tidy kitchen. 

I wanted to post this essay for a particular reason:  So often, when I speak here about the writing workshops I host, and my love of teaching the art of personal storytelling and memoir, I’ll hear from longtime readers who tell me this:  “I’ve always wished I could attend one of your workshops.  But I don’t write.”

If you’re one of those people, I have something to say to you about this.  Do you have a mother, or did you ever have one?  Did you ever fall in love?  Did you ever lose something that mattered a whole lot to you?  Is there a place you wish you could return to, a day that changed how you saw the world?  Is there some possession—a guitar, a dress from 1973, a photograph, a car, a certain place on a certain road—that, if you caught sight of it again, would make you draw in your breath, or sigh, or look away?  Or look back?

I love helping a person tell his or her stories in a way that allows the people who read or hear them to understand and feel what we felt, when they happened to us.  That’s why I host my writing workshops.  So I want to tell you about a very special one, coming up next February, at a place I love, Lake Atitlan, Guatemala: the 14th annual Lake Atitlan Writing Workshop.

As you will know, if you read my recent article in the New York Times T-Style magazine, the lake has been rising, to the point where my house may not survive many more rainy seasons.  Specifically because that’s true, I want this coming workshop—taking place February 15th - 24th—to be as memorable as any, ever.  If you’ve been to the lake to work with me before, and loved it, I hope you’ll consider coming back.  If it’s something you’ve always wanted to do, but kept putting off:  don’t put it off any longer. 

In the weeks and months to come, I’ll be posting more information about the workshop, and the wonderful faculty who will be joining me there, but the best way I know to describe it is to suggest you read what past students have said about the experience of working with me on their writing at the lake.  If you’re interested in joining us, I hope you’ll email my assistant Melissa, who can answer nearly any question about the experience.  For now I’ll answer one myself:  Do you have to be a writer?  No.  I only ask that you come willing to become one.  If you have a story to tell, and you’re ready to look at the truth of what happened, I can promise you’ll have an extraordinary week with me at the lake.

Finally—and this is actually related, because it’s about the role of adventure and risk in our lives, and the value of leaving one’s comfort zone—I wanted to share with you a video of an appearance I made last month in Washington, D.C. at the beautiful headquarters of National Geographic Magazine, talking with the writer and editor, Don George—a wonderful interviewer—about what travel and seeing the world has meant to me over my lifetime.

I have to swallow all pride in posting this, because—as I discovered when I watched this video—I need to do about a million more tricep exercises before I ever put that dress on again.  And then there's the hair problem...what on earth happened to that $800 haircut? Never mind—I'd like to think I can get over looking a little rough around the edges or a lot rough around them.  Funky looking pies.  Funky looking pie baker.  It figures.

At the end of the day, that's not the most important thing.

I spoke that night—as I have not done publicly before or since—about the experience of my failed adoption, and for the benefit of others who have struggled with some form of this experience—or those who may have heard about it, and chose to judge, as I might well have done myself once—it feels worth sharing what I had to say here.

There are many aspects of this hard story I will not be discussing, now or ever, because to do so would not be in the best interests of those most closely involved.  But there is another reason why I share this story of mine , too.  (The parts I feel free to tell).  I do this because so many people carry the daily burden of their own hard and painful stories, and the shame that comes from keeping them locked up. 

Of course when the National Geographic posted this video on its website, the usual round of critics and putdown artists weighed in (to criticize my hair, my eyes, my existence on the planet, you name it).  And no doubt there will be plenty more who take my words on this subject and run with them.  Never mind.  The older I get, the easier it gets to simply be myself.  The more impossible it gets, to pretend I'm anything other than that.

With friendship

Joyce Maynard

P.S.  As of this week, I’m off to spend the summer on the East coast, writing and swimming and eating lobster rolls and picking berries and putting them in pies in some of my favorite places:  Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts (where I’ll be rooting for the Red Sox against the Texas Rangers) and Vermont.  I’ll be giving readings and talking about my work in the two towns where the Labor Day movie was and is being filmed:  Shelburne Falls, Mass (on August 23, at Boswell’s Books) and Acton Mass (on August 8, at Willow Books.)  If you’re anywhere nearby, come say hello.