I’ve always been a writer.
It’s the only thing I’ve wanted to do since I was five years old, when Mom’s friend Dolores showed me her office in her home where she worked as a freelance writer. “I write stories about whatever I want, and I don’t have a boss,” she told me. Sign me up.
So I became a writer, reading tons of novels, editing school newspapers from eighth grade to Wesleyan, and then deciding against journalism school (“You already know how to write a news story,” one professor told me) in favor of becoming a freelance writer. I wrote first for local alternative newspapers and then for glossy magazines, eventually writing non-fiction books. Until a recent, brief stint working for a scientist during COVID, I never had a full-time job, and made my living (such as it was) by writing.
My first book, Losing It, an expose of the diet industry, got mostly excellent reviews and, because I predicted the diet pill scandal of the day, landed me on every talk show from the Today Show to Maury Povich, the BBC, NBC, and even MTV. A few years later, after writing a few personal travel posts for Salon.com, I had a New York Times bestseller (An Italian Affair). Magazines like Vogue and Gourmet gave me big expense accounts to write features from other countries, and I thought my career was going to continue on that marvelous upward trajectory of travel, TV shows, writing for two dollars a word and up, landing book contracts, and going on book tours where they pick you up at the airport with your name on a card and whisk you away in a limo to a fancy hotel where you can order room service.
Then, as you may have heard, journalism pretty much died. Most of the magazines I wrote for shuttered, and I’ve aged out of others, though I still write for a few (shout out to Craftsmanship Quarterly and Alta, both kept alive by generous patrons). Book publishing has also become a lot like our economy, where the top 1% get most everything, and I slid down to the middle class. After my bestseller, my next book got orphaned when my editor was fired and it didn’t get much love from the publisher or publicist. Then I parted company with my agent (“You’re mid-list and middle-aged, so I’m not sure I can help you,” she said from her fancy midtown office) . Now I’ve lost whatever luster I once enjoyed in the publishing world. (Originally, that sentence read, “Now I’m dogshit in the publishing world,” which is probably closer to how I feel, but I’m trying to be kind to myself these days.)
To make things worse, I really don’t have a brand. I’ve never wanted to be tied down to one field or set of ideas. The whole point of being a journalist, in my view, is to parachute into other worlds, learn a lot fast, and make some sense of it all. After my book about the diet industry came out, everyone wanted me to write about weight and dieting forever, asking me, for instance, if I’d like to go follow Kirstie Alley around to see what she really ate. No thank you. I’d already said what I had to say on the topic (I have quite a bit more to say about it now, 25 years later, as you’ll see if you stick around). No brand: I just want to write about people and things I’m curious or passionate about.
But for awhile now, with few outlets, I have been Not Writing, at least not very much, and what I have been writing just sits in the bowels of my computer, constipated. For a writer, that’s not just unsatisfying, it’s ridiculous.
It reminds me of the time I went to visit my late uncle William Zinsser (not related by blood; he was married to my father’s first cousin, Caroline, who is an excellent researcher and writer herself), in his Manhattan office. He wrote, among many other books, On Writing Well, and never had an agent, just sent things off to publishers. I told him I wasn’t writing a new book because my agent didn’t think I had a salable idea.
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” he said. “You’re a writer, so write.” I spent the rest of an hour with him discussing my book and went home to write All Over the Map, which had its literary moments, even though it wasn’t, as my then-agent predicted, a commercial success.
Some of the books I’ve written, edited, or contributed to
Once again, I have to remind myself of my uncle’s advice. I’m a writer, so I have to write. I’m not about to mess up my record and go get a full-time job at this late date (with rampant ageism in the workplace, it’s not like anyone would hire me anyway). So I’m going to start writing fresh essays about travel, body image, reproductive rights, books, climate change, food, and whatever else I feel like writing about here in The Phrazer.
I’ve always enjoyed writing columns —PressBox for the Bay Guardian, Venus Envy for the SF Weekly, even Senior High Times for the Littleton Independent at age 16 (I suppose I could write a column with that same title) right now —so this will a kind of column. I’m also going to go into my considerable archives to republish or comment on articles from the past that are still timely. And as someone who has taught writing for over thirty years, I’m going to write about writing, and offer some tips for you other writers out there. (Like “when in doubt, cut it out.”) I’ll answer all the questions people often ask me about Italy and Mexico, from my favorite restaurants to places to go salsa dancing. I’ll share my favorite recipes. Plus, you’ll get a preview of the book I’ve been working on for, um, about ten years.
I’m excited to start publishing again! I hope you’ll join me, and connect with me about my topics. This is free for now, though eventually I may put some things like writing classes available only to paid subscribers. Thank you, and please share!
Coming to The Phrazer on Thursday: 36 years after my Mother Jones cover story on mifepristone, the abortion pill, has drug technology out-maneuvered the anti-choice Right?
Today in Golden Gate Park
hi lisa! it's catherine gacad, a former student of yours. glad to read you here!