Lisa Hoffman & Charles Atkins

Published 12/9/04

"Did you ever get your Chef Bruno article in? I ask Lisa, as we settle into her living room for what’s become our Saturday morning writing routine. I lean back in the bentwood rocker with my laptop and she sits perched on her Hawaiian Sand upholstered riser chair, around which have sprouted precarious stacks of recently purchased books, catalogues and newspaper clippings.

"No, believe it or not I haven’t had the time," she says. "Plus she—referring to our editor--hasn’t run the last article yet."

"So, why do you write?" I ask, steering toward a topic that’s near and dear.

"Why? I really don’t know. I’ve written all of my life, even when I was a child and I’d write school plays. I guess it runs in the family. My father used to write poems in all of my children’s books. And writing I think is company. You don’t need other people; it’s like talking to someone else. And when you do share what you’ve written with others you can make them curious or happy or whatever other emotion you might evoke. It’s also a challenge; it doesn’t come easily at times. I’ve known moments where I’ve stared at a blank page for hours and nothing happened. I know you don’t agree with that. You’re so disciplined; you write no matter what."

"I do. I’m not one who gets writer’s block. If I’m looking at a blank page, I ask myself, ‘what am I avoiding? What do I fear?’ and that’s what I write about; it never fails. It’s one of the many intersections between being a psychiatrist and a writer. I find that in both, if I head into areas that I’d rather avoid, powerful things emerge."

"For me," she says, "I write because I want to say something. And unlike you, I’m not someone who will go back and correct things. That’s why a computer doesn’t hold much fascination for me; I like to get it right the first time. Even when I knit and drop a stitch I won’t go back and undo all of those rows; it’s not in my nature."

"Do you ever write just for yourself, stuff that no one else will ever see?"

"I used to write poetry, when I had more time…or when I was in love. Fred Werle—the former dean of Mannes School of Music, turned some of my poems into songs. And in the past I would occasionally write for amusement, if something struck me as interesting. But normally, I write for a purpose; it’s how I’ve made my living. And what I most enjoy, and have done for many years, is writing about people and finding out what makes them tick."

"That’s why I chose psychiatry," I offer. "I found that while I considered surgery, what really fascinated me were people, and their stories, and why they do the things they do. When I write fiction it’s very similar. So what’s been your favorite or most interesting interview?"

"It’s one that was never published; it was with Françoise Gilot—Picasso’s companion who bore him Claude and Paloma. It was right after she’d published her book My Life with Picasso. It was so long ago, and I remember it because she was so liberated, women’s lib before women’s lib. She believed in not being dependent on a man and in making her own way. Plus, the fact that she was with this famous artist for so many years, and she was very honest about her life. Sometimes, when you interview people they camouflage their answers or aren’t straight forward with their feelings, but she was."

"Do you have pictures from that interview?"

"No, and what I most regret is a small watercolor she’d painted and given to me that’s vanished." Lisa pauses, "She was also married to Jonas Salk the inventor of the polio vaccine, but I can’t remember if that was before or after Picasso."

"So what are some of the more important things for a writer to keep in mind?"

"As a journalist," she says, "You owe it to your subject and the public not to deviate from the facts."

"I think the same—in a sense—is true for fiction. That you’re trying to show something about human nature, without having it turn into a textbook. It’s the old chestnut of "show don’t tell." In reporting you’re talking about an event or a person, in fiction you’re trying to display it."

"There are other rules in journalism," she adds. "Or decisions each writer has to make. I honor a person’s wishes; if someone tells me something confidentially and says ‘it’s off the record’. I’ll never use it, even if it would make a fantastic headline. And in my whole long career as a writer I’ve never had a problem. I also always tape my interviews, so I won’t misquote, plus it protects me if someone should later say, ‘I didn’t say that.’"

"It’s a funny business being a writer," I add, "very solitary—each day alone at the computer or with your writing pad and typewriter. Most people don’t have a clue what goes into it."

"I know," she says, "but it seems that every other person is writing a book.

"People often ask me how to get published. I think it’s different for everyone."

"Most of it is luck," she states.

"I disagree. I think it’s mostly perseverance. Occasionally, someone gets lucky and gets a book published the first time out. But mostly it takes determination, discipline, a willingness to take criticism, and a very thick skin. I’ve known some wonderful writers who will never be published, because they can’t take the harshness of trying to bring their work to the marketplace."

"You do have to take a lot of rejection," she agrees. "At one point I could have wallpapered a room with rejection slips. I was actually considering using them in a collage or something."

"I used to keep all of mine; I eventually threw them out. But occasionally I’d get one that wasn’t a form letter that had some helpful suggestions. Like the first time I’d written a book. I got a rejection letter saying that the manuscript was not professionally formatted. So I went out, bought a book on manuscript formatting and never made that mistake again. Another time I went to a book fair and met the owner of a publishing house, who’d rejected one of my manuscripts. He told me that while his company would read manuscripts from authors without agents, in his twenty years in the business, he’d never once published one. I took that to heart, stopped sending manuscripts and query letters to publishers, and hunted down an agent. Within a year of signing, I’d had my first book accepted.

"We also do very different types of writing, you and me," she says. "So this has been an interesting collaboration. It’s kind of exciting to think that at 85 I can still get involved in new creative projects. There are no age limits on being a writer, and it’s good exercise for the mind. But getting back to your first question about ‘why do I write?’ There’s the thrill of seeing your name in print for the first time. And I love the feedback and letters from readers, and a certain kind of celebrity when I would walk into a restaurant and someone would ask, ‘aren’t you…? And before they could finish their sentence I’d say, "I am." And I guess too, it’s like being a painter, where you create something that might possibly go on after you’re gone.

"A stab at immortality?"

"No, just knowing the difference between write and wrong."

I groan, "That’s enough" and turn off the computer.

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