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Letter from Joyce Archives

September 8, 1999

Dear Friends,

When you last heard from me, back in August, I mentioned that I needed some time for myself. I was wrestling with a difficult family problem. If the issue concerned nobody but myself, I'd probably talk about it here, but since that's not the case, I'll just say that I found myself, as a parent, at odds with my daughter over choices she was making for her life that were hard for me to accept. We have never ceased to communicate, and I cannot imagine the day ever coming that we would not feel great love and closeness despite our differences. But it was also necessary, for both our sakes, to do some major letting go -- as every parent must, over time, and to recognize that whether or not her choices were ones I'd make, her life belongs to her, not to me. For a person like me who has spent the last 21 years taking care of her children and trying, too hard, to spare them pain -- classic Adult Child of an Alcoholic stuff -- that was very hard. I found a lot of comfort in Al Anon as I worked on that issue, and others in my life. I still do.

My son Willy and I spent the month of July in Los Angeles, where he was working with his longtime tennis coach and mentor, Rod, and working on training himself as an actor. I gave myself over mostly to supporting his activities during those weeks -- not without some frustration. I had supposed I could work in unfamiliar circumstances, but it was difficult, and I learned that much as I adore my son, the moment is past for us to live in close quarters, dependent largely on each other. Because my life was so enmeshed with his during those weeks, and because I had less going on with my own work, I found myself way too invested in my son's tennis, his acting ... and rapidly losing sight of the boundaries between where his life ended and mine began (coming scarily close to some of the same things my mother did to me, when I was growing up). More lessons in detaching, for me -- and it's good I'm working on them now, since the next I've been tending for so long will be totally empty in just a couple of years now.

Willy's older brother Charlie spent most of the summer in New York City at the NYU summer high school film program. It was a rich, wonderful summer for him. (And one that made absolutely no demands on me, beyond writing the check.) Now that he's back -- at work on a documentary about juvenile delinquents, and studying animation -- I am treasuring this last school year before he takes off to college, and the last year for my two boys to live together at home. Of all my joys as a parent, none has been greater than watching my children's love for each other and the joy they take in each other's company. I often feel I live in the presence of a 24-hour a day comedy team. I will miss that, when Charlie leaves, but not as much as Willy. Not that he doesn't provide plenty of comedy himself. In fact, the biggest problem with Willy is keeping a straight face, when I'm mad at him.

I had started work on a novel some months back, but that one no longer felt like what I wanted to be writing, so I put it away for the time being, and turned my writing energies instead to a screenplay -- a romantic comedy, just completed. After a couple of years spent so immersed in the telling of the dark tale I tackled in my last book, it felt very good to be writing lines that made me laugh out loud at my computer. We'll see what happens with that venture. Meanwhile, I'll be returning to fiction-writing soon.

I will also continue to pursue stories for Redbook Magazine, in my new role there as a contributing editor, telling inspiring true stories in the lives of real men and women. In the upcoming months I'll be making several trips to do reporting for Redbook, as I did, last spring and summer, in my trips to Louisiana and to Macedonia. If you want to read the story of my trip to refugee camp and the wonderful family I befriended there, you can now do so. And if you come upon a story, from your own life, or one you hear about in your area, involving a major challenge in a woman's life, I hope you'll drop me an e-mail through Myrna and let me know about it. I'm always on the lookout.

I want to let you know about some upcoming appearances I'll be making. September 15, I'll be teaching an evening writing seminar, available through the Learning Annex. Details of time, place and cost are posted to the left, and at the top of the Discussion Forum. On October 12, I'll be speaking at the University of Florida in Gainesville, October 17 at the San Francisco Book Fair, October 21 at U.C. Berkeley at the School of Journalism, November 19 and 20 at the Rocky Mountain Book Festival in Denver, and December 6 at Book Passage in Corte Madera, Ca.

For those of you who are interested in writing seminars I want to mention two where I'll be appearing: The Key West Literary Seminar, January 13-16, 2000 (this year's theme: Memoir, featuring Frank McCourt, Tobias Wolfe, Mary Karr, Anchee Minn, Nancy Friday and others).

From September 30 to October 2, 1999, I'll be teaching and speaking (along with a fine group of writers at the first annual Walloon Writers' Retreat on Walloon Lake, Michigan. My dear friend -- and an inspiring writing teacher -- Rosemary Daniell, who has for years run the legendary Zona Rosa writers' group in Georgia and beyond, will be teaching at that retreat. Also presenting at Lake Walloon is the writer and documentary filmmaker (Roger and Me), Michael Moore, whose fearless approach to confronting corporate giants on behalf of down-sized workers served as my inspiration, during a year in which I experienced a fair amount of difficult criticism and attack, as I travelled the country talking about my recent memoir.

The book that touched off the criticism (including a recent assessment of me by none other than Kathie Lee Gifford, who pronounced me "a slutty writer") will be available in paperback at the end of September. The new edition of At Home in the World features a new afterword by me in which I explore reaction to the book, and what has happened since its publication, along with a reprint not available in the hardback, of my first New York Times cover story from 1972, "An Eighteen Year Old Looks Back on Life". A study guide for reading groups will be available soon here on this website. I hope those of you who belong to reading groups will think about recommending the book for discussion, now that it's coming out in paperback.

Finally, I want to let you all know that although my time away from this group was valuable and necessary, I continue to treasure my relationship with readers and friends I meet here. I will look forward once again to hearing from you all and meeting new friends here in the months to come. During my absence, we marked the two-year anniversary of this unique forum, which has now seen more than 6.8 million hits. Please remember that we could not keep going without the devoted attention of our matchless web-mistress, Myrna Uhlig, whose work here is entirely supported by sales of autographed books, tapes and the Where Love Goes CD available from the Joyce Maynard Catalogue. Coming soon: our first video, How to Make a Pie. If you don't feel like making a purchase, but you drop in here regularly, I hope you'll consider sending a contribution to Myrna at P.O. Box 636, Clatskanie, OR 97016.

So, I'm back. I'll try my best to update this space with regular letters again, as we move through the final months of the century. Which brings me to our new Domestic Affairs Message Board contest: Knowing we're likely to be seeing a lot of Hundred Greatest ... lists, as the year draws to a close, I thought we should beat the rush and try to come up with one of our own. So (to counteract the relentless emphasis on celebrity in our culture) I'm looking for nominations for a Most Interesting Little-Known Characters of the 1900's List. We'll be accepting nominations through December, but you can post them any time, starting now. The complete group will be made available here before year's end, with a copy of the How to Make a Pie video awarded to the winner.

Your turn.

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