One thing — of many— about last night’s panel that will stick with me (Emily): Alex Chee told us that one of his writing mentors, Deborah Eisenberg, recommends that when people ask what you’re working on, you should straight-up lie. Like, you should have a fake stock answer ready so that your real ideas can just stay in your head, protected.
I really wish someone had told me this before. But I guess it’s not too late to take this advice. So yeah, I am working on this amazing novel of small-town politics and 9/11. I mean vampires and college baseball. I mean a secret society of magicians in late-1930s Eastern Europe …
Also the next time you start feeling sad about how women are told over and over again that our sex appeal/cultural commodity-viability ends when we’re approximately 35, spend some time Google Image-ing Deborah Eisenberg.
