“My late father, Maurice Zolotow, was a Hollywood biographer, a professional freelance writer and passionate reader. Whenever I went through hard times, personally or professionally, Maurice could be counted on to tell me two things. The first was advice: ‘Write your way out of it!’ he’d bark, directively. But then, more thoughtfully, he’d say, ‘It’s all material, Cres. Nothing is wasted on the writer.’
This is the way it works. You return to a town where you used to live. You go on a short walk, on a street you have walked many times. You are only stretching your back and legs and getting a few more steps in so your Fitbit will be happy at the end of the day. You are only… Read More
“These are words I’ve lived and written by; they have allowed me to find meaning and purpose in every age, stage, experience adventure and misadventure in life. Here, I do it again, focusing on our lives, mine and yours, as writers. I give some advice; I tell some stories.
"Thanks for the title, Maurice.”
My father, the stripper’s press agent
After the Los Angeles funeral of my late father, Maurice Zolotow, a well-dressed, chic, trim woman came up to me and extended her hand. She had excellent posture, and her hair — a jet-black that looked neither harsh nor unnatural — was well-styled in a short, flattering, expensive cut. Her age was hard to guess (I figured out later that… Read More
Charlotte Zolotow’s Fierce Truthtelling: ‘always’ is continguous to ‘never’
It's been snowing all day. The house at 29 Elm Place, where I grew up, will be sold in a month or two. It's the house in which my mother, the writer Charlotte Zolotow, quietly died 24 days ago. I am here going through her papers. This is a job which could, and in some ways will, take me the… Read More
Keeping the “dead” in “deadline”
“He cannot be dead,” said Paul, my father’s editor at Playboy. “It is Friday. I am sitting here looking at a pitch letter he sent me on Monday.” Things you don’t realize will be part of your job description: returning voicemail messages left for your father, who has suddenly died. “Well, Paul,” I said, “Maurice always said he wanted to… Read More
speaking the unspeakable; accepting the unacceptable
Why are some saved and some lost? Once a month most months,I make the roundtrip drive from Westminster West,Vermont to Hastings-on-Hudson, New York (where I spend a week with my 97-year-old mother, Charlotte Zolotow). Leave Vermont, cross Massachusetts, cross Connecticut, reach New York. And then reverse it. Exit after exit, I read the names of the towns and have my… Read More
Fearless Writing
Have I missed anything?
I had no idea Nate was an undercover cop in the Narcotics Division of the Chicago police department the first time I slept with him. I will skip the whole long, weird tale of his and my relationship, which only lasted 5 or 6 months, and took place when I was around 23 years old, other than to mention that… Read More
just so you know I haven’t been totally slacking in the blog department…
Look, I realize that in Blog World having your last post dated December 12 when it's now the following mid-April looks bad. Really bad. I've had my reasons. New book (Bean by Bean). Book tour. Elder care. Not home much. Blah, blah, blah. But, I do walk the talk writing-wise, pretty much. I do writing practice, daily or near-daily. And… Read More
how long does it take to write a book?
smart pizza Two weeks ago Sunday, I was having pizza in Boston, Massachusett, with a group of seven smart young food-centric women. 'Smart' both in the sense of intelligent/on-it; and of being well turned-out, in a low-key way, even for Sunday pizza. And 'young' in the sense of, compared to me. They were in their mid-twenties, early thirties; I'm 59…. Read More
Rumi: "The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep." I didn't; I got up and worked out this morning. Even though the room was cold and the bed (paisley flannel sheets, sleeping partner) was warm. And now it is time to write. Did I hear any new secrets this morning? I don't think so,… Read More
Are you a real writer? The sure way to find out…
It's 9:24 a.m. I have to leave at 10:00 to drive a deeply depressed friend to her therapy appointment. I am in the middle of writing one of my long, thoughtful, typical essay-type posts, which my friend Ronni Lundy calls "blongs." I left it, and began writing this instead. I have a bowl of Irish oatmeal beside me, cooked with… Read More
uncovering: a yak, a six-year-old, and some witches walk into a post…
…that particular morning, that little girl in Atlanta did have a question. A real question, and, as I have said, she asked it with solemnity and gravitas. Her manner made me wonder later if she, literal as all children are, had perhaps been puzzling over it for weeks, as I remember puzzling over why “witches” were in the Pledge of Allegiance. (“And to the Republic, for witches stand…”)
“Do you believe,” that little girl asked me, “that it’s true that you really can’t judge a book by its cover?”
