Young and Adorable

MICIAH BAY GAULT is the author of the debut novel Goodnight Stranger, published by Park Row Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, in 2019.

WHEN I was in my MFA program, the faculty, my fellow graduate students, and I took visiting writers out to dinner after their readings. We sat at round tables eating spaghetti, garlic bread, and salad and talked about their lives and their work. I looked forward to these dinners, to this kind of informal contact with visiting writers, because the thing I’d wanted most fiercely since I was six years old was to be a writer. In my twenties and officially a writer-in-training, I felt there were things I couldn’t learn in workshops or from reading the fiction I loved. Not how to write but rather how to be a writer. How did writers dress, what drinks did they order, how did they shake hands? I wanted role models. These dinners, I thought, were the ideal occasions to find them.

One visiting writer was especially stylish and charismatic. She lived and taught in New York City, and I admired her novels and the editorial work for which she was known. When I introduced myself to her after dinner she was friendly, if guarded. I noticed her jewelry, be successful,” she said. “You’re young and adorable.”