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A WRITER'S WIT: ASSIA DJEBAR

6/30/2026

Sometimes fear grips me that these fragile moments of life will fade away. It seems that I write against erasure.
Assia Djebar (Fatima-Zohra Imalayen), Algerian Novelist & Translator
Author of The Disappearance of the French Language (La Disparition de la langue française)
Born June 30, 1936

A. Djebar

Up Next:
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Denis Johnson
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Hermann Hesse
FRI: A Writer's Wit | M. F. K. Fisher
My Book World: Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant. Stuff You Should Know: An Incomplete Compendium of Mostly Interesting Things

BY-THE-SEA LUCY BARTON

6/26/2026

A WRITER'S WIT
From what I can tell, the chief distinguishing factor between children and adults is that children hear everything while appearing not to and adults hear nothing while pretending to listen.
Stephen McCauley, LGBTQIA+ American Novelist
Author of The Object of My Affection
Born June 26, 1955

S. McCauley

MY BOOK WORLD

Strout, Elizabeth. Lucy by the Sea. New York: Random, 2022.

Reuniting characters Strout has created in previous novels (Oh William, My Name is Lucy Barton), she sets this novel in early 2020 when the COVID-19 lockdown begins. William, Lucy’s former husband who has remained a good friend, convinces her that they should abandon their separate New York apartments and live out whatever is to happen in the state of Maine. Mention is even made of Olive Kitteridge, and Bob Burgess, also a member of Strout’s quirky repertory company, plays a major role.

In this novel, Strout does what others writing about the pandemic of 2020 do not. She takes readers through each and every sad step that some people on the East Coast must make in order to survive: vacating New York City apartments and escaping to rural Maine until the Okay is given by the government. She explores the mixed feelings people have about the shutdown, feelings that people who live in other parts of the country may not experience.

Lucy and William, now divorced twenty years, function as friends and roommates, although they do share two adult daughters, Chrissy and Becka. The dynamic among the four is fascinating, because you’re never sure what each is going to do in regard to the other three. At least once a week, Lucy takes a walk with Bob Burgess, a happily married man. However, he likes to sneak a cigarette during the walks, a practice he cannot carry out with his wife. Lucy always feels good after their talks, although their relationship remains Plutonic. William, a scientist, has seen this pandemic coming and always seems to have the answers for their daily lives. When and where to wear masks, all the other ways they can protect themselves from the virus. William and Lucy, because of their closeness and because of the comfort in their relationship, decide they will live post-pandemic in New York City but in separate abodes, remaining close friends with benefits, one of which is not marriage.

For me to reunite with characters I’ve loved in other books, it is like reuniting with family or at least good friends. As always, Strout’s novel is a page-turner. I can’t wait to see what my friends are going to do or say next. More important, I wonder what impact their lives will have on mine.

Up Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Assia Djebar
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Denis Johnson
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Hermann Hesse
FRI: A Writer's Wit | M. F. K. Fisher
My Book World | My Book World: Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant. Stuff You Should Know: An Incomplete Compendium of Mostly Interesting Things

A WRITER'S WIT: DOROTHY GILMAN

6/25/2026

If something anticipated arrives too late it finds us numb, wrung out from waiting, and we feel—nothing at all. The best things arrive on time.
Dorothy Gilman, American Writer of Spy Novels
Author of The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax
Born June 25, 1923

D. Gilman

Up Next:
FRI: A Writer's Wit | Stephen McCauley
My Book World | Elizabeth Strout, Lucy by the Sea
TUES 6/30: A Writer's Wit | Assia Djebar
WEDS 7/01: A Writer's Wit | Denis Johnson
THURS 7/02: A Writer's Wit | Hermann Hesse

A WRITER'S WIT: MERCEDES LACKEY

6/24/2026

The people who keep coping, keep trying, no matter how many blows Fate takes at them. Nobody’ll make a song about them, but they’re heroes all the same.
Mercedes Lackey, American Writer of Fantasy Novels
Author of The Outstretched Shadow
Born June 24, 1950

M. Lackey

Up Next:
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Dorothy Gilman
FRI: A Writer's Wit | Stephen McCauley
My Book World | Elizabeth Strout, Lucy by the Sea

A WRITER'S WIT: JEAN ANOUILH

6/23/2026

Everything in France is a pretext for a good dinner.
Jean Anouilh, French Dramatist & Screenwriter
Author of Becket
Born June 23, 1910

J. Anouilh

Up Next:
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Mercedes Lackey
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Dorothy Gilman
FRI: A Writer's Wit | Stephen McCauley
My Book World | Elizabeth Strout, Lucy by the Sea

BRITISH AMERICAN LGBTQIA POET: Thom GUNN

6/19/2026

A WRITER'S WIT:
I’ve told youngsters not to write their autobiographical novel at the age of twenty-one; to save it for the time when they're fifty-one or sixty-one. They should write other novels first, to learn their craft; they shouldn't cut their teeth on the valuable material of childhood because they'll never have better material, ever, to work with.
Laura Z. Hobson, American Novelist
Author of Gentleman's Agreement
Born June 19, 1900

L. Z. Hobson

MY BOOK WORLD

Gunn, Thom. The Passages of Joy. London: Faber and Faber, 1982.

Sad to say I didn’t know who British-American poet Thom Gunn was until I read his recent biography by Michael Nott. Gunn’s life and poetry piqued my interest in that in spite of his seriousness as an artist, he totally buys into the druggie and sexual lifestyle of the nighttime. How can he do . . . or conquer . . . both? This is perhaps Gunn’s ninth collection of poems of a total of over twenty books.

The final poem of the collection, “Night Taxi,” may fulfill Gunn’s desire to portray this nocturnal lifestyle, with an opening line like “Open city / uncluttered as a map. / I drive through empty streets scoured by the winds / of midnight” (90). As a taxi driver, the persona continues: “I take short cuts, picking up / speed, from time to time / I switch on the dispatcher’s / litany of addresses . . .” (90). After having established this concrete beginning, Gunn shifts to a more philosophical tone: “Do I pass through the city / or does it pass through me? / I know I have to be loose, / like my light embrace of the wheel, / loose but in control / —though hour by hour I tighten / minutely in the routine, / smoking my palate to ash, / till the last hour of all / will be drudgery, nothing else” (91).

Glancing upward I see
high above the lamppost
but touched by its farthest light
a curtain of rain already blowing
against black eucalyptus tops (92).

The final stanza of this final poem establishes we are most likely in San Francisco, not London. The camphoraceous aroma choking the air, much like Gunn choked life. Or did life choke him? According to Wikipedia, “In April 2004, Gunn died of acute polysubstance abuse, including methamphetamine, at his home in the Haight Ashbury neighbourhood in San Francisco, where he had lived since 1960.” Sad to say this might have been the perfect death for him, and he’d always known, in some small part of his brain, that it would be.

Up Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Jean Anouilh
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Mercedes Lackey
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Dorothy Gilman
FRI: A Writer's Wit | Stephen McCauley
My Book World | Elizabeth Strout, Lucy by the Sea

A WRITER'S WIT: GAIL GODWIN

6/18/2026

None of us suddenly becomes something overnight. The preparations have been in the making for lifetime.
Gail Godwin, American Novelist & Short Story Writer
Author of The Good Husband
Born June 18, 1937

G. Godwin

Up Next:
FRI: A Writer's Wit | Laura Z. Hobson
My Book World | Thom Gunn, The Passages of Joy
TUES 6/23: A Writer's Wit | Jean Anouilh
WEDS 6/24: A Writer's Wit | Mercedes Lackey
THURS 6/25: A Writer's Wit | Dorothy Gilman

A WRITER'S WIT: JOHN WESLEY

6/17/2026

Though I am always in haste, I am never in a hurry.
John Wesley, English Cleric, Theologian, & Evangelist
Author of Sermon, "The Spirit of Bondage and Adoption"
Born June 17, 1703

J. Wesley

Up Next:
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Gail Godwin
FRI: A Writer's Wit | Laura Z. Hobson
My Book World | Thom Gunn, The Passages of Joy

A WRITER'S WIT: ERICH SEGAL

6/16/2026

Professors of classics—not even a professor of English—professors of classics, they’re something sacred; it’s almost like being a priest.
Erich Segal, American Novelist, Educator, & Classicist
Author of Love Story
Born June 16, 1937

E. Segal

Up Next:
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | John Wesley
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Gail Godwin
FRI: A Writer's Wit | Laura Z. Hobson
My Book World | Thom Gunn, The Passages of Joy

LIKEWISE, BOYS OF WALES

6/12/2026

Medicine is probably one of the best backgrounds for a writer to find stories. I always think cops and docs have the best background because we see so much of human behavior, such a range of human emotions.
Tess Gerritsen, Author of Medical Thrillers & Crime Novels
Author of The Spy Coast
Born June 12, 1953

T. Gerritsen

MY BOOK WORLD

Jones, John Sam. Welsh Boys Too.
Cardiff: Parthian, 2000.

At ninety-one pages, the thinnest of story collections with eight specimens, yet each one is packed with what it is (or was) like to be gay in Wales. My favorite story may be “But Names Will Never Hurt Me,” one in which Jones explores the time-honored practice of putting dirty names on something you don’t understand:

They’d started calling you names even before it had dawned on you. You wondered sometimes, if it hadn’t been for the name calling, whether you would even have thought about it. You’d known that there were people like that, in the worlds of soap operas, television personalities and big cities, but your little piece of Welsh coast seemed so untouched. Of course there were the holidaymakers and their antics, but they came and went. The first time they’d called you bum-boy you hadn’t really understood what they’d meant; then it was shirt-lifter,and that one had really baffled you too. Effing queer was much more straightforward, even if you couldn’t understand why they were calling you that. But then. As the months passed, you came to recognize in yourself what others had already seen. It was unspeakable” (49-50).

That last sentence gives me a shudder, bringing back an innocent prank my so-called friends had pulled on me in high school, an ever so subtle way of attempting to get me to see what I was. When the character says “unspeakable,” I think of the restricted use of Welsh in this story. Another character in a different story proudly proclaims something to the effect that Welsh is eons older than English. A certain pride bounces off each page. Perhaps I recognize it because I am one-fourth Welsh, my ancestor having landed in New York in 1790. Maybe not. Maybe I just found this small collection fascinating on its own merits. In any case, I enjoyed it very much.

Up Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Erich Segal
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | John Wesley
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Gail Godwin
FRI: A Writer's Wit | Laura Z. Hobson
My Book World | Thom Gunn, The Passages of Joy

A WRITER'S WIT: ALLAN GURGANUS

6/11/2026

My mother had a master’s degree and had been a schoolteacher before she started having kids at thirty. But my father's family were landowners, farmer-merchants. Moneymaking was extremely important, like one of those semi-rapacious families in Lillian Hellman, where they know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Allan Gurganus, LGBTQIA+ Novelist & Short Story Writer
Author of Plays Well with Others
Born June 11, 1947

A. Gurganus

Up Next:
FRI: A Writer's Wit | Tess Gerritsen
My Book World | John Sam Jones, Welsh Boys Too
TUES 6/16: A Writer's Wit | Erich Segal
WEDS 6/17: A Writer's Wit | John Wesley
THURS 6/18: A Writer's Wit | Gail Godwin

A WRITER'S WIT: LOUIS COUPERUS

6/10/2026

There was no good or bad in the world; everything was as it should be...

Er was geen goed of slecht in de wereld; alles was zooals het wezen moest...

Louis Couperus, Dutch Novelist & Poet
Author of The Hidden Force (De stille kracht)
Born June 9, 1863

L. Couperus

Up Next:
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Allan Gurganus
FRI: A Writer's Wit | Tess Gerritsen
My Book World | John Sam Jones, Welsh Boys Too

A WRITERS WIT: JOHN HOWARD PAYNE

6/9/2026

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
John Howard Payne, American Actor, Poet, & Playwright
Author of Home, Sweet Home
Born June 9, 1791

J. H. Payne

Up Next:
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Louis Couperus
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Allan Gurganus
FRI: A Writer's Wit | Tess Gerritsen
My Book World | John Sam Jones, Welsh Boys Too

SHORT VACATION

6/2/2026

I have at the last minute decided to take a few days off. The Writer's Wit posts I had scheduled for June 2-5 will be cancelled, and the My Book World post will be postponed until a week later. Thanks for understanding.