various community organizations. One
of these was a group devoted to preserv-
ing a magnificent cookery-book collec-
tion housed in the university library near
me. I liked the work, and over a period
of years I took on leadership positions.
But weekly and monthly meetings
demanded a lot of my time, and
squabbles between committee members
drained my energy, and even editing the
newsletter of this organization became
a trial because so few contributors
stepped forward. Surrounded by living,
breathing warm bodies, I found myself
still alone, physically and spiritually
depleted, drowning in the world.
And—more to the point—not writing.
One morning, after a particularly
fractious meeting at the university
library, I knew the time had come. I
resigned that afternoon.
To do the real work of writing, I
realized, requires a form of solitude,
not unlike that of the anchorite, living
in seclusion for religious reasons.
Julian of Norwich served as my role
model. Walled into a cell in a convent in
Norwich in the late fourteenth century,
away from the sinuous clamorings of
the world, she wrote Revelations of Divine
Love, the first known English book by a
woman. She said “No” to the world.
And that is what I learned to do as well.
Yes, to write is to be alone, even
lonely. The Internet and social media
help in driving away some of the physi-
cal and mental isolation, bringing other
living, writerly voices into my life.
But the danger of over-involvement is
there as well. What Ernest Hemingway
stressed in his 1954 Nobel acceptance
speech remains true:Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Orga-
nizations for writers palliate the writer’s
loneliness but I doubt if they improve his
writing. He grows in public stature as
he sheds his loneliness and often his workdeteriorates. For he does his work alone
and if he is a good enough writer he must
face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.Indeed, there’s something of the eter-
nal about writing, the words remaining
long after the flesh is dust.
And so, for now, I accept the loneli-
ness, as it’s the price I must pay to do
what I do. These days, I often think of
Norman Mailer’s comment: “Writers
don’t have lifestyles. They sit in little
rooms and write.”
And they say “No” to the world, to
protect the writing.Program Chair, Gregg Zachary
[email protected]sfis.asu.edu
Innovation is central to a better future for all
of us — and writing remains a critical means
of informing, persuading and motivating
people to work for a better future.
Graduate Certificate in Nonfiction Writing and Publishing
CYNTHIA D. BERTELSEN is a writer and
photographer and the associate editor
of Bacopa Literary Review. Her book,
Mushroom: A Global History, grew out of
her blog, Gherkins & Tomatoes. She is
at work on a novel inspired by medieval
mysticism and herbal healing.