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Hilma Wolitzer's husband of almost 70 years died of COVID in the first months of the pandemic.
  

It was as if he vanished, she told me in the latest episode of the [B]OLDER podcast.

Hilma and her husband Morty both got COVID in April of 2020. They were taken to separate hospitals in New York City.

She never got to say good-bye.

He died two days before she was released from the hospital and went home to her apartment.

As she tells me on the podcast:
 
"There were his slippers next to the bed. There was a pair of his drugstore eyeglasses. He seemed to have vanished and that was the sense I tried to depict in (the final) story of my new book."
 
Hilma's short stories about domestic life were published in the Saturday Evening Post and Esquire in the 1960s and 1970s. She has taught writing at the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, the Iowa Writers' Workshop and at universities. She's also a novelist and the recipient of awards and fellowships.

In 2021, at age 91, she published a new collection of short stories titled "Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket."

She was encouraged to write through her grief, and to write one more story and add it to a new collection, by her daughters: artist Nancy Wolitzer and New York Times bestselling author Meg Wolitzer.

She titled the new story, "The Great Escape." It is as diamond sharp and perfect - and funny - as her earlier writing.

I don’t want to say too much because Hilma really says it all in this conversation:

- What her writing process is
- Why she writes about ordinary domestic life
- Why and how she wrote through grief
- What it was like, over 50 years ago, to be a woman and a writer and not be taken seriously 

Hope you'll listen to this episode with an extraordinary woman and an extraordinarily talented writer, 92-year-old Hilma Wolitzer.

 

Episodes you may have missed:


Season 4-EP17: Dr. Bree Johnston on psychedelic therapy to ease fear of death

Season 4-EP 16: Bestselling author Dan Pink on the Power of Regret at any age

Season 4-EP 2: Emily Moore on vulnerability, life, and becoming a cancer survivor


That's it for today.

With warm regards, 

Debbie 

P.S. There is one more episode of Season 4. A season finale and wrap-up with my husband Sam Harrington featuring his dry humor and a discussion of issues in the news like the 100-Year Life and Medical Aid in Dying. Stay tuned for next week.



about | author | nonfiction writing coach
I help writers get unstuck
m: 202.255.1467
wordbiz@gmail.com

The [B]OLDER Podcast

Reinventing life and work and making the most of growing older.






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