When You Engage in Some Good Old Literary Citizenship Because, Really, You Just Want New Writer Friends with Whom To Bitch About Publishing

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I was at my very first HippoCamp last year when I told Lisa Romeo my hopes and dreams, because she was the only person there that I knew, and so she was stuck with me. I told her I wanted to find the New Jersey equivalent of Girls Write Now, a mentoring program for teen girls who want to write, because I love the work they do and would get involved if only I didn’t have to cross into NYC in order to do so. I also lamented my lack of local writer-friends. I knew there were other writers in the area. But where were they? And why weren’t they friends with meeeee???

Which is how I found myself at the Montclair Literary Festival last weekend, working the children’s room at the Montclair Public Library as a representative of the Writers Circle.

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How to Save the World, One Small Step at a Time

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It was never my plan to be a sex writer. Is it anyone’s plan? No. I wanted to be the next Bill Ervolino, writing slice-of-life humor columns for my local paper. Instead, I somehow ended up reviewing Carol Queen’s Exhibitionism for the Shy and test driving vibrators and state-of-the-art condoms. Suddenly, I was making a living writing listicles on the top ten ways to boost your libido. I was creating online clickbait for cash. And it was burning me out.

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