“What’s your favorite book?” I asked when I interviewed local writers for my friend’s newsletter, which was aimed at local writers. 

I did not have time to do these interviews, but my friend was often in crisis. “Please, please, please. No one will help me.  Couldn’t you interview somebody, anybody?”

“Somebody, anybody! What a request!”  I loved the idea of interviewing somebody, anybody.  Perhaps I could approach a person in a suit and sneakers.  “Excuse me, have you ever written a  memo?  Well, see – you are a writer.”

Soon I had interviewed everybody in the small local community of writers.  Friends, friends of friends, frenemies, friends of frenemies, enemies of friends or frenemies…   

Then I started calling PR people to set up phone interviews with writers who hailed from our city or state.  The writers were gracious, but weary of being asked the same questions in interviews.  Did they write by hand or on a computer?  Almost everyone said by hand.  When did they write?  In the morning.  Nobody wrote in the afternoon.

My favorite question was:  “What’s your favorite book?” But that was a naive question, I learned, and much too specific.

“So many books,” they always said.  “I can’t narrow it down to one.”

I felt humble.  I was so simple that I  could narrow it down to one. 

They kindly mentioned some favorite books, always at least one new book, sometimes a cult classic, and they also plugged books by friends.

I often helped her out, for the sake of friendship. It was volunteer work. There was a dearth of volunteers!

I doubt she got paid much, if anything, for editing and writing that newsletter.  She also worked part-time at a demanding job, reviewed books, and was a talented fiction writer. But she died young, in her forties, before she finished her book.

…atque in perpetuum, soror, ave atque vale..