You Might Not Know

Various people have tagged me for the latest (possibly annoying) meme, Things You Might Not Know About Me... But I'm officially letting Gail Dooley (professor of music at Morningside College) tag me because she asked for six items:

1. I talked in paragraphs before I was one. True.
2. As a child, I couldn't bear tags or seams. I still cut out a lot of tags. True.
3. Also as a child, I ate raw vegetables and fruit only. And dessert. I had nothing against dessert. Perhaps this is why they tell me I have no bones. Only too true.
4. This one is to go with the "six" request: I will be sixty blinking years old on the 22nd yet don't believe it. True, mostly. Now and then I believe it, mainly when my back hurts.
5. Because I was a poet and an innocent about publishing, this is how I published my first book: I read a book called Salar the Salmon (great book!) published by David R. Godine of Boston. I thought if they loved Williamson, they might like me. I put my manuscript in a little brown envelope and sent it off with a lick and a stamp in the way people used to do back in the golden age of publishing. Three months later I called the publisher. The operator had never heard of me and said to call back in three days. I did, and he had heard of me this time and said the manuscript was on Mr. Godine's desk. Took a long time to come out, but that was my first book. Absolutely true, and a good hope for innocent writers.
6. I have never looked for an agent and am spoiled on that count. My first found me when my first book was in galleys. The great Louis D. Rubin, who died (to my very deep sadness) in the past day, suggested me to my second. Now I don't have one at all and like it so far, although it has drawbacks. Some day I might embrace a third. Maybe. Or not. And the facts are true there, and the end waffley enough to pass muster.

Good night!