Enormous Changes: Goodbye, Grace

Author, poet and activist Grace Paley died. I'm very sorry to know that, even if I haven't read her work or, really, thought about her lately, she definitely affected me when I did. Maybe the coincidental quasi-parallels to my life (life in New England -- Maine for me, early on, then Manhattan and Manhattan for her, early on, and then Vermont. We both attended NYU, where I studied filmmaking. I graduated; she didn't -- but she did marry a cameraman) made me feel more connected to her than I might have -- but her short stories and politics definitely cemented her in my mind as a great person and artist.

Here's a nice interview and overview from an article by A.M. Homes from Salon.com (1998), subtitled: "Grace Paley talks about the moral obligations of writers, the success of the women's movement and the importance of not giving a shit."

My sister has a signed copy of one of her books, possibly Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, and I'm very jealous.