One Good Thing/Celebrating Small Change

It's never too late to start a new chapter

Last week I received a very welcome email from journalist Karen Tumulty, who I first met when we both worked for Time Magazine (wow — I just realized that this was 25 years ago!). [YIKES]

“I got so excited when I saw this shoutout to Amy!” read the subject line. She’d copied a couple of other women we know.

Karen then thoughtfully shared this quote from Anne Tyler’s new novel, which she had made into a nice little Kindlequote slide.

I left my advice column job last year, but I’m not going to lie — I am quite thrilled to have a tiny walk-on in one of my favorite novelist’s latest book. I’d like to think that I would be thrilled by any mention in any novel, but the thought that Anne Tyler and I have ever shared the same headspace, even briefly? Gulp.

Of course, I immediately sat down to thank Anne Tyler, even though I hadn’t yet read her book.

And I was reminded of how challenging it can be — even in this day and age — to contact a writer who doesn’t necessarily want to be contacted. But I figured out who her current editor is and sent my note to the editor in New York. Maybe it will be sent to Anne Tyler, along with her other fan mail, and maybe it will be read. Who knows?

I spent the first few pages of “Three Days in June” sort of scanning the text for the reference to me, but I settled down pretty quickly because I became absorbed in this quiet tale of Gail Baines, a 65-year-old divorced mother whose only daughter is getting married that weekend.