Two years ago, I thought about graduate school. I applied to several top programs, including NYU's. I probably should have set my sights a little lower given my age (42at the time) and lack of publishing history. The best I got was a place on the wait list at NYU. But it was good exercise, making me polish several short stories and write five different personal essays. Here is part of one I wrote for NYU:
As a writer, I believe in negative space, in leaving room for the reader to meet me halfway. I want to write fiction that slithers in without announcing itself, but nests in the reader’s psyche for a long time. The importance of work and its relationship to identity is a favorite theme of mine. Specifically, I want to explore further the boundaries of work for my female characters. What are they willing to sacrifice for work? For principles? I also have a strong interest in exploring what home is (geography? family? work? history? landscape?) and how it relates to identity for my characters. All the different ways people can feel at home fascinate me. And why is it so important? These are the main issues engage my mind.
Work ended up a favored theme probably because I have held so many different jobs. Law is the career in which I invested the lion’s share of time, energy and money. In dissecting my failure at it, I finally realized that I had thought law was about finding the truth. But it isn’t. It is about hiding the truth. Fiction was the only place I had always confronted truth. I value my study of law, though, because it did train my mind to look everywhere for answers and at all sides of a problem. And failure is always a good learning experience.
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