Mary Novaria

A Thing About Writing That Turned Into Something Else Brenkee Photo/Pixabay Maybe you have foodie friends. You know, the ones who are hip to the new hot restaurants, the up-and-coming chefs, and the latest gourmet trends. Then there are the Swifties, who've recently added to their ranks thanks to the blossoming romance between a particular award-winning pop star and a certain tight end who happens to play for my favorite football team. *  Enter the “wordies.” We are the foodies and Swifties of the writing world. Some of us are journalists, others are poets, novelists, essayists, songwriters and more. We are the ones for whom words are craft. We get fixated on a random word for no apparent reason, examining it in the way I imagine a potter might do with a blob of clay. We are compelled to get our proverbial hands dirty, to squash that word and stretch it, to pound it flat only to gather it up, fold it over itself, knead it again, observe it from a variety of angles, then decide what...

After living a long time in the Nonfiction world, I'm happy to share my first published piece of Fiction! My very short story, "Las Meninas," is out and can be found at Persimmon Tree.   (To find it, scroll through Short Takes:  Resilience and Resistance.  Here's a taste...  Las Meninas by Mary Novaria Elizabeth would’ve walked the couple of kilometers from the Picasso Museum to La Rambla, but her feet were killing her and,  my God , the humidity! Sebastian had insisted she dress up, so she slid into the taxi wearing a navy shift and strappy Gucci heels that showed off her toned calves and demure, taupe pedicure. “It would reflect badly on me if you went out in one of your Bohemian get-ups,” he’d said. Not that she had any of those “get-ups” anymore. That was the old Elizabeth. Before Sebastian. Back when she was Lizzie, which he deemed unrefined. She’d been so taken with him. At fifty, he was still boyishly handsome and sophisticated-–bespoke suits and a c...

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As if gray, post-holiday, winter days aren’t dreary enough, the sad news came of author Elizabeth Wurtzel’s death from breast cancer . She was only 52. Her seminal work, Prozac Nation , had a profound impact on me when I first read it as the mother of two young children back in the mid 1990s. I can still see myself turning the pages, propped up on my bed in the new Kansas house. My eldest was probably in First Grade and my youngest napping. It was before we’d decorated the bedroom or renovated the master bath. The walls were still that grayish  builder’s white and the comforter on the bed, from early in our marriage, was worn and faded, which was how I felt sometimes, too. My memories of reading Prozac Nation are linked to place and time like no other book I can recall. Sure, I might remember reading this book on an airplane, or that one at the beach, but I am so rooted to that snapshot of my thirtysomething self with my nose in Wurtzel’s book. Not...

An earlier version of this essay appeared in HuffPost on 11/10/2015 I was mortified because I didn’t send thank you notes after my birthday the year my mother died. The flowers had drooped and died, but other presents — a couple of gift cards, an adult coloring book (very Zen), a cuff bracelet — were tangible reminders of my negligence. It’s not like me and I felt guilty. It’s not that I wasn't grateful. I was. And I was raised better than to blow off this time-honored tradition and most basic piece of etiquette. My mom drilled into me as soon as I could write, it seems, the importance of acknowledging a gift-giver’s thoughtfulness and generosity. After every Christmas and birthday she provided me with stationery, stamps and addresses, and hounded me until I wrote my notes. The year she gave me sealing wax and a brass stamp with an “M” on it I couldn’t wait to get to the task so I could light the deep red wax like a candle and watch, mesmerized, as it dripped onto the back ...

Funny how the mind works and makes connections. Is it just writers who go to wacky places, dredging up long-forgotten memories and burrowing down into the proverbial internet rabbit hole? Or do we all do it? My friend Judy texted me a story about a wildlife refuge here in Colorado where the prairie dogs have been infected with the plague . Seriously, how medieval is that? The Washington Post story stated: “Though the plague can be treated with antibiotics, it has a dark history.”   Ya think? And here I’ve been worried about what I would do if a bear comes into the yard while I’m in the hot tub. Turns out the Rocky Mountain National Wildlife Refuge is clear on the other side of Denver – more than an hour away. So, phew, I don’t need to worry about the Black Death today. You can believe I’ll steer clear of that place until the plague is eradicated. It did get me thinking about prairie dogs, though. Some years ago, when we lived in Kansas...