when you find your name in The New Yorker

Katrina Kenison is the one who told me. My name, she said, on the back of The New Yorker.



Are you sure? I said.



Because everybody who reads this blog knows how much I love The New Yorker. How much respect I have for its pages. How I have dreamed (but it is only a dream) of being New Yorker worthy.



Just as everybody who reads this blog knows how much I love Alice McDermott, with whom I sat, long ago, at the 1998 National Book Awards. She won that evening, for Charming Billy, and I joined the roaring crowds. I have been a huge admirer ever since—of her storytelling, her language, and her humanity.



My words in this ad on the back of The New Yorker? Needless to say, it is an honor.



For those who might have missed them, my thoughts about Someone are here. Yes. I loved it.