Author Abigail Thomas

Today I am grateful for the lessons and growth that experience and practice bring to all areas of my life, for the breeze bringing cooler air to our area this morning, and for memoirist Abigail Thomas.

I am late to discovering the wonderful and entertaining writing of Abigail Thomas, who author Stephen King describes as “The Emily Dickinson of memoir.”  One of my other favorite authors, Anne Lamott, mentioned her in a post and off I went to find some of her books. I have read three now: Thinking About Memoir, What Comes Next and How to Like It, and Still Life at Eighty: the Next Interesting Thing. A Three Dog Life is next in line.

Like Anne Lamott, Abigail Thomas has a writing style punctuated by brevity, plenty of wit, and surprising gems of wisdom from both the mundane and profound happenings in life. My kind of writers.

I hope to make it to 80, but all I know for sure is that I made it to 58 so far, and I woke up this morning—always a good starting point.

Here are some of the gems gleaned from Still Life at Eighty:

“It’s hard work to be conscious of every moment.”

“I figure I have a choice. I can worry myself into the ground. That’s one. Or I can think of my failing memory as an achievement. I am finally living in the moment.”

“I write to find out what the back of my mind is doing while I’m doing nothing. I write to find meaning when meaning is hard to come by. I write through confusion for clarity. I write for fun.”

I especially fell in love with this last quote. It captures what writing is, and always has been, for me. Thank you Abigail Thomas! I look forward to picking up more of your books. You have a way with words and a style like few others I have read. Write on!