It Is Not Sex That Gives The

I Was A Working Class Jewish Girl. In My Girlhood, Anti-semitism Was A Daily Fact Of Life In Detroit. I Did Not Come From People Who Had Many Options In Their Lives Or Many Choices Open To Them. I Was A Girl In A Family In Which Women Were, As In Society At Large, Very Much Second-class Citizens. I Did Not See Why I Should Accept These Forced Limitations Without A Fight. Being Free To Make My Own Choices Thus Became Very Important To Me At An Early Age.

Praise Our Choices, Sister, For Each Doorway Open To Us Was Taken By Squads Of Fighting Women Who Paid Years Of Trouble And Struggle, Who Paid Their Wombs, Their Sleep, Their Lives That We Might Walk Through These Gates Upright. Doorways Are Sacred To Women For We Are The Doorways Of Life And We Must Choose What Comes In And What Goes Out. Freedom Is Our Real Abundance.

Shall I Tell You Something I've Been Noticing? The Mistrust This Society Has For Women. All Kinds Of Experts And Officials Are Terrified Because So Many Women Are Working. They Really Think That Women Have To Be Coerced Into Having Babies And Raising Kids.

Suppose That A Person Writes What She Must. That Is Only The First Step Of Becoming A Writer. The Work Must Survive The Moment Of Creation. It Must Get Out To An Audience. She Or He Must Dare To Show The Work. She Must Risk Ridicule, Misunderstanding, Scandal, Condemnation, & What's Often Worse, None Of The Above: Silence. No Attention At All.

In Fiction, I Exercise My Nosiness. I Am As Curious As My Cats, And Indeed That Has Led To Trouble Often Enough And Used Up Several Of My Nine Lives. I Am An Avid Listener. I Am Fascinated By Other People's Lives, The Choices They Make And How That Works Out Through Time, What They Have Done And Left Undone, What They Tell Me And What They Keep Secret And Silent, What They Lie About And What They Confess, What They Are Proud Of And What Shames Them, What They Hope For And What They Fear. The Source Of My Fiction Is The Desire To Understand People And Their Choices Through Time.