High Five With Nicole Graev Lipson
The author of Mothers and Other Fictional Characters on five of her current obsessions.
Each month, I ask an author I love to share five recommendations they have for other writers, whatever is the wind beneath their wings when they sit down to write. This month I reached out to Nicole Graev Lipson, the author of the memoir in essays Mothers and Other Fictional Characters, on sale March 4 and available now for preorder.
Her work has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, selected for The Best American Essays 2024, and shortlisted for a National Magazine Award. Her writing has appeared in The Sun, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Gettysburg Review, LA Review of Books, The Millions, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and Marie Claire, among other places. Originally from New York City, Lipson lives outside of Boston with her husband and three children. Visit her website or find her on Instagram at @nglipson.
So without further ado I’m handing the metaphorical microphone over to Nicole!
If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland Did you ever have the feeling, when you were a teenager, of discovering a vintage store so full of cool things that you wanted to keep it a secret from all your friends? That’s the ignoble feeling I had when I first stumbled upon this totally charming 1938 writing advice guide—but I’m a bigger person now and am here to say that every writer and aspiring writer should read this book! I reach for my copy every time I need creative encouragement, or to be reconnected with what I love about the writing process. Ueland’s insights are so relevant, and her voice so witty and irreverent, that it’s hard to believe this publication is nearly a century old.
There are so many great passages, but one of my favorites (despite the dated male pronouns) is: “Everyone is original, if he tells the truth, if he speaks from himself. But it must be from his true self and not from the self he thinks he should be.” Mothers and Other Characters wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for these two sentences, which inspired me to return to the page day after day. I wanted every single sentence in the book to crack through unbearable shoulds we as women shoulder, freeing the truths below.
Silk Turban I’m endlessly frustrated by the labor making oneself presentable requires and am always looking for ways to reduce the time I spend on this. Enter the silk turban! I can’t recall what gave me the idea to start sleeping in one of these, but I’ve never had bedhead since. This might seem like a trivial life improvement, but not when I think about the collective hours my turban has returned to me—hours I’ve spent resting or reading or writing or hanging with my children rather than standing in front of a mirror with a detangling brush.
I have to say that I also feel pretty glamorous in my silk turban!
Filofax I’ve been using the same refillable Filofax planner since I was a junior in high school, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to function if this company ever goes out of business. It has everything I need to organize my life—roomy calendar pages, a section of lined paper for notes and lists, pockets at the front and back that allow it to double as a wallet. I’ve never kept a digital calendar and don’t understand why anyone would do such a thing when there is this in the world?
PictureThis Plant Identifier App I grew up on the tenth floor of an apartment building in New York City, surrounded by very little nature. Moving with my own family to a Massachusetts town with actual green space made me realize how much knowledge I lack about the natural world, and how limited my vocabulary is related to plants and trees. As a writer, I know that being able to name the objects of our world can make it come alive in finer detail, and when my kids were little, I was sort of ashamed that all I could say when we passed a gorgeous flowering tree in the stroller was “Look at that tree!” With this phone app, now I can snap a quick photo of every beautiful tree and learn exactly what species it is. It turns out my neighborhood is full of dusky willows and kousa dogwoods, and my life feels fuller knowing this.
Jane Eyre The first time I read Jane Eyre, I was fourteen, and I cried because I was so despondent it had to end. I remember closing the book, staring at it a moment, and then kissing it. I literally pressed my lips hard to the back cover because I was so in love with all of it—with Rochester and Helen Burns and Thornfield Hall and mad Bertha, and above all with Jane, whose inner spirit remains my favorite in all of literature.
I recently came across this beautiful edition in a gift shop and purchased it to read to my daughter when she’s old enough. I know I shouldn’t wish our lives away, but….
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