WHY DO I WRITE ~ Mary Jo Bang

WHY DO I WRITE ~ Mary Jo Bang




My biological father (who left home when I was four) kept a daily journal for over fifty years weirdly recording times down to the minute (5:38, not 5:40), the weather and its vicissitudes, which roads he drove to work (various), and what he bought if he stopped at the drugstore (Tums), etc. At night he typed and shaped it. He kept the pages, divided into years, in over-sized three-ring binders. He called it The Story of My Life. There are thousands of pages. Some genetic debt undoubtedly drives my compulsion to write. Of course, there's also everything I've ever read, and every one I've ever met, including my mother, whom I met early.