Ayelet’s Comments (group member since Jun 08, 2011)

Ayelet’s comments from the Ask Ayelet Waldman group.

Dani,
Give little Ayelet my regards!

Kyle,

Libraries! I use them all the time, I love them, I am always happy to hear that someone got my book from a library.

I'm so glad you liked the ending. I went back and forth on it many times, but ultimately I knew it had to be there...

Hello Dara!
Hardly hypocritical. Actually very typical of many Jews. Like, for instance, me and my family. We are absolutely devoted to many Jewish traditions and we don't keep remotely Kosher. I light shabbos candles every Friday night, and last night my husband served Lobster bisque. My grandmother kept completely kosher -- two sets of dishes and everything. But she ate shrimp scampi whenever we went out to dinner. Most American Jews are like that. The observant ones are a TINY minority.

Ellie. You are HEROIC. Seriously. I am always in awe of mother's of kids with "issues." You have to be a general going into battle to get them just the most basic of services. You're wonderful!!!! But you don't need me to tell you that.

Hey Caroline,

It's fairly straightforward now...the kids are at school all day, which gives us plenty of time to work. And TODAY we drop the 3 younger off at camp for a month. Provided all goes well, we will pound out thousands of pages in this blessed blessed quiet month!

Mary,

Well...I don't really recall it taking courage. More like, "Oh what the hell."

Yup, Mary, there are topics I won't include...for instance, I would never say anything negative about my husband (or anything that wasn't, basically, a joke). That's just a line I won't cross.

Dear Matilda,

I love Daughter's Keeper. It's my first "literary" novel. (Lord how I hate that phrase). It's the one where I first began to sort of feel my oats as a writer. And it meant so much to me in so many ways. I feel like I want to force every teenage girl I know to read the book, but I can't even convince my own daughter to read it!

Dear Amanda,

You'd better have a purpose because I'm half a decade away from 50 (how is that possible???) and I'd better have one too!

Dear P,

Thanks so much! If you read any of the others (start with Love and Other Impossible to Remember Titles) let me know what you think!

Hey Caroline!

How old are yours? Abe's 8, but he loves babies. He'd do great in playgroup!

Dear Shannon,

Oh my god. I wrote that!! I had completely forgotten. I hate to admit it, but it made me cry. My youngest is 8, and I'll never have that feeling of holding a baby like that again...not the way I described it in the Big Nap. Thank you. THANK YOU for giving me back that moment!

Dear Yvette,

Exactly. Or maybe even, instead of finding balance, we find the imbalance we can tolerate at any given moment. Because I'm never BALANCED. I'm only tolerably out of whack!

Dear Joanna,

DON'T DO IT! All I do all day long is spell my name for people. "You YELL it? HAHAHAHAHA." Like I've never heard that before. OY.

I love the idea of providing entertainment for a nursing mother!

Dear Liz,

1. I've never let any magazine do a photo shoot of our house. Not even the NY Times or Architectural Digest when they asked. I was sorely tempted, but I write so much about our personal lives, I felt like I owed us all at least a little privacy.

2. I always let my kids either read or know about what's in my work, especially the nonfiction. But I wish I could say that I haven't paid a price for my "honesty." In Bad Mother I wrote something I'm ashamed of (I can't tell you what, and I pulled it out from the paperback), and someone VERY close to me hasn't spoken to me since. It's one of the great heartbreaks of my life, and I regret it every single day.

Dear Lisa,

Oh thank you! What lovely words to read. Yes. Human...Iris is absolutely and completely human. With all the flaws that implies. At least I hope she is. That's what I was going for.

Dear Kate,

I show my work to my husband ALWAYS. At various stages. I talk through it with him early on, and then he reads an early draft, and then he does a line edit on the final final draft. And I do the same for him.
Beyond that, I rely on my agent, and on my editor. I ask different people to read the book depending on the topic. For example, for Red Hook Road I asked 2 violinists to read it, one of whom was a child prodigy. I asked a wooden boat builder to read it, and a boxer. You can see them all in the acknowledgments, though I don't identify what they helped me with!

Dear Lizzie,
I had THE SAME DREAM -- the small studio in Maine. I'm building it right now. I'll tell you what. When we're both empty-nesters (will we even live that long?) you can come write in my Maine studio!

Dear Clare,

Oy on all three fronts. I know the tween drama well. My sweet little Rosie just turned 10, and she's already starting. It's kind of killing me.

Dear Nita,

A Pittsburger! So nice to meet you over Goodreads...

I love that you give my book (and Annie's!) as a baby shower present. I'm honored to be in her company!