Grace Paley Passes

I think it was Honi Jeffers who told me I needed to read Grace Paley---she had made me a list of who I should read---Linda Pastan, Muriel Rukeyser, Rita Dove---Honi had known who would speak to me---she recognized that voice within me as a young writer and what it needed to grow. I heard Grace read here in DC---how still we sat at the JCC, hanging on to every word, our own hearts, silently nodding along as if she had reached into us and pulled out a story we didn't know we had.

She was the grandmother I think many of us younger writers wanted also to call our own. To read her work, was almost to be standing next to her at the stove or sitting next to her. She will be much missed, but she will live on through her words.