Anytime I’m driving around in my car, it’s practically certain that I’m listening to one of three things: my i-pod, myself cursing the hell that is LA traffic, or NPR (although, the second comes and goes sporadically on a daily basis). NPR - specifically KPCC in my neck of the woods - is the most thought provoking of all my choices. For those of you who are quick to categorize public radio as boring or stuffy, well….Pffft!
On this night, my friend Patt Morrison (and I use the term “friend” loosely here) interviewed the editors, Rachel Fershleiser and Larry Smith, who recently published a collection of autobiographies contributed by some famous and not-so-famous scribes of our time. Entitled: Not Quite What I Was Planning: And Other Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Obscure, this comparatively smaller volume sums up in six words what could otherwise be said in 600 pages. Take for example this personal narrative, which Rachel was quoting when I first tuned in: “After Harvard, had baby with crackhead.” Wow….That’s a story.
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