Still Writing: The Pleasures and Perils of a Creative Life (22 page)

My friend Mark, a sculptor whose large-scale works in granite and marble have been commissioned by Stanford University and the Clinton Library, whose pieces are in some of the most prominent art collections in the country, and who is a well-respected professor at the School of Visual Arts in New York, pulled me aside at a dinner party.

“Somebody just asked me if I was still doing my sculpture thing,” he said.

I laughed.

“I’m serious,” he said. “How was I supposed to respond?

Are you still doing that brain surgery thing?”

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Dani Shapiro

I thought of all the times that I’ve been asked if I’m still writing.

I’ve been asked this by acquaintances and strangers, even by fans, readers of mine.
Still writing?
It always felt, to me, like a shameful thing that I was being asked this—that surely if I had written more books, won more awards, made more money, was better known, I wouldn’t be dealing with this question.
Still writing?
Over the years, I’ve assumed there must be a point at which this would cease to be asked. After two books? Five? Seven? After being interviewed on NPR? The
Today Show
?
Oprah,
for gods sake
?
Though I felt protective of my friend, it was a relief— ridiculous though it was—to hear that he had to deal with the same question. As if he might have outgrown it. Changed course. Gone into law—or opened a fish store—instead.

I’ve asked around, and discovered that every artist and writer I know contends with a version of this question. It’s asked of writers who are household names. It’s asked of photographers whose work hangs in the Museum of Modern Art.

It’s asked of stage actors who have won Tonys. Of poets whose work is regularly published in the finest journals. No one who spends her life creating things seems exempt from it.
Still writing?
Oh, and I’m pretty sure that the person asking it means no harm. It’s just an awkward stab at social chitchat. But best to stick with the weather, or the miseries of the college admis-sions process, or the deliciousness of the soup.

Still writing?
I usually nod and smile, then quickly change 226

Still Writing

the subject. But here is what I would like to put down my fork and say: Yes, yes, I am. I will write until the day I die, or until I am robbed of my capacity to reason. Even if my fingers were to clench and wither, even if I were to grow deaf or blind, even if I were unable to move a muscle in my body save for the blink of one eye, I would still write. Writing saved my life. Writing has been my window—flung wide open to this magnificent, chaotic existence—my way of interpreting everything within my grasp. Writing has extended that grasp by pushing me beyond comfort, beyond safety, past my self-perceived limits. It has softened my heart and hardened my intellect. It has been a privilege. It has whipped my ass. It has burned into me a valuable clarity. It has made me think about suffering, randomness, good will, luck, memory, responsibility, and kindness, on a daily basis—whether I feel like it or not. It has insisted that I grow up. That I evolve. It has pushed me to get better, to
be
better. It is my disease and my cure. It has allowed me not only to withstand the losses in my life but to alter those losses—to chip away at my own bewilderment until I find the pattern in it. Once in a great while, I look up at the sky and think that, if my father were alive, maybe he would be proud of me. That if my mother were alive, I might have come up with the words to make her understand. That I am changing what I can. I am reaching a hand out to the dead and to the living and the not yet born. So yes. Yes. Still writing.

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AC KN OWL E DGM E NTS

Teaching creative writing has sustained me in countless ways.

It has taught me the art of close reading. It has shown me that a group of serious students around a workshop table can become its own kind of sacred community. It has forced me to show up on time in grown-up clothes. For taking a chance on a young writer way back when, my gratitude to Alan Zeigler at Columbia University, who gave me my first job. Thanks too, to E. L. Doctorow at NYU and Robert Polito at The New School. To all of my students, past and present, but particularly those in my long-standing private workshop: Jenny Moore, susie Rutherford, Ellen Schutz, Anda Tal, Heidi Von Shreiner, Ariel Leve, Rebecca Wallwork, Nina Sherwin, Jor-dana Rosenberg, Alice Elman, Lori Leibovich, Karen McKin-non, Laura Brown, Penina Roth, Anna Weiner, Lindsey Mead Russell, kate Small, and Rebecca Stead. To my former student and dear friend and coconspirator Hannah Tinti, who helped 229

Dani Shapiro

create The Sirenland Writers’ Conference. To Antonio and Carla Sersale, who allow us to hold the conference each year in their magical hotel, Le Sirenuse. To Jim and Karen Shepard, John Burnham Schwartz, Ron Carlson, Peter Cameron, Susan Orlean, and Karen Russell, who are the world’s best colleagues.

To my wonderful agent Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, and to Elisa-beth Schmitz, extraordinary editor, my deepest appreciation.

And finally, everything begins and ends with my husband, Michael Maren, and our son, Jacob. Loves of my life.

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