A new chair is ordered. A new companion is gained. Some old stories are retold. An anniversary occurs. And a birthday occurs, maybe. Jejune 2, 1989 Dear Jenny, Well, it’s a new month. I just finished last month, with a total of exactly 600 letters for the year to date—and this is the fourth letter this month. I—what? The last letter before this one? Oh, you wouldn’t care about that; it was just to some dull old publisher. So let’s—what do you mean, what publisher? Morrow, if you must know. Now let’s get on to—will you stop interrupting me?! Morrow’s a hardcover publisher, a major one. Now, as I was saying—good grief, girl, you’re as bad as your mother! Once you latch on to something irrelevant, you never let go! All right, it was this: last month the editor at Morrow phoned me and asked whether I would start a story for a New York Book Fair story contest later this year, and be the judge of the winning entry. That is, I would write maybe the first thousand words, and then the contestants who picked that up at the Morrow booth at the fair would finish the story, and I’d decide who did the best job.
