Coping With the Up-and-Down Arc of a Prolific Writer’s Life |
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Merrill Joan Gerber's latest book captures a writer's journey from 1960s to now.
Gerber's vast archive, including past correspondences, is now at Yale.
Persisting through depression, writing was Gerber's life anchor.
Merrill Joan Gerber has been writing fiction, essays, and memoirs—and getting her work published regularly—for well over half a century. I was curious about her long writing life and her various routes to publication, and she generously shared some honest writerly truths with me.
Susan K. Perry: What was your impetus to publish this latest book of yours, a compilation of past stories?
Merrill Joan Gerber: After I had published my book of essays, Revelation at the Food Bank, in 2023, my publisher himself, Jacob Smullyan, suggested that now might be a good time to gather together a collection of my best short stories.
For this newest book, Some Should Know This Story: Selected Stories, I chose 25 from my 127 published stories with the intention to express the arc of a writer's........