Inspiration From My Favorite Writer

With all this talk about hitting the gym and playing basketball, you might have forgotten that your pal WunderGlo is something of a bookworm. My mom taught me how to read when I was just three years old, and I've been hooked ever since. Naturally, I majored in English while at Duke and I consider myself a pretty serious reader. Some of my favorite writers include Ernest Hemingway, Vladimir Nabokov, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Michael Cunningham.

But nobody can compare to my favorite writer of all time, Joyce Carol Oates.

Joyce Carol Oates is a brilliant and prolific writer, and has written in practically every genre known to man. And what she writes about -- the complicated relationships between people, the visceral and sometimes disturbing way we hurt and care for each other, and the struggle between right and wrong that defines our humanity -- has always mesmerized and intrigued me. I'm not one of those people who likes light comedies or easy reading - I like to get my butt kicked and my mind and heart challenged by art. And Joyce Carol Oates's work always does the job. She has helped make me delve deeper and think harder about what we are as humans than any artist I've encountered.

The minute I had the opportunity to meet her, I did. During my senior year at Duke, I ran the Blackburn Literary Festival and brought Joyce Carol Oates to campus for two wonderful days. In those days, she met with students, gave a brilliant reading, signed countless books for her Duke fans, and participated in a panel discussion. And I also got to spend a lot of time with her and realized that we had much more in common than the fact that she wanted to write about what she wrote about and I wanted to read it. It was magical, bonding with my favorite writer and feeling a kinship that I never would have expected. I always say that spending those days with JCO were among the best of my life, and despite all the great days I've had, it still rings true.

I mention Oates not just to recount great times, but because she was at the Los Angeles Public Library (the Central branch in Downtown L.A.) last night and I had the pleasure of meeting her again. Though seven years have passed and so much has happened since then, there we were again, shaking hands -- the brilliant writer and her most devoted fan. And despite the day-long nagging headache that felt like a swarm of bees had invaded my brain, when she read from her new memoir, A Widow's Story, my head cleared. I let her words stir my mind and soul, and suddenly, those chemo side effects weren't noticeable at all.

It's amazing, the connection you can have with people. So much of the beauty of this cancer-killing adventure has been the connections I've made with people - whether deepening bonds with family and friends, or new relationships with doctors and nurses and fellow cancer warriors. So much of the joy and strength I possess is because of those connections.

What Joyce Carol Oates's work has helped to teach me, and the rest of my life has made truer than true is this: we are all connected, and we are all in this life together. The journey may be hard -- like Oates, you may lose your spouse suddenly and after 46 years of marriage, or like me, you may be fighting for your life in the face of a deadly disease -- but the reward of life and living, along with and among your fellow man, is always worth it.