Victoria Noe

For musical theater fans, that question evokes a song sung by John Adams in 1776. For those who are activists, it’s a lament. 

Last week I was privileged to take a two-day workshop, “Write to Change the World”. Offered by The Op Ed Project, it proved to be an intense and productive lesson in how to write effective opinion essays. Their focus is underrepresented voices.

I was in New York for the Writer's Digest Conference in 2017 and decided to go to Pitch Slam. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, it’s like speed dating for writers. Before the conference, you’re provided with a list of agents and editors who will be there, looking for authors to add to their client list. You choose a few, based on how closely their interests align with your book.

When the day comes, you sit across the table from an agent or editor and tell them about your book in a very limited amount of time: three minutes. They tell you if they want a full book proposal or if they’re not interested. A bell rings, and you move to the next agent/editor. It’s stressful and at times completely demoralizing. But there have been many success stories.

I wasn’t looking for an editor or an agent that day. I just wanted to get feedback on my book I was working on, about straight women in the AIDS community. 

I’m in New Orleans for the US Conference on HIV/AIDS, so I thought I’d share this essay that won the 2015 Christopher Hewitt Award for Nonfiction, appearing in the October issue of the late, great A&U Magazine. I was surprised to see that my feelings remain the same.

It’s only the past few years that the designation has become widely used. Hell, no one expected it would ever be possible. There was a time when my only prayer was to get through a week without reading the obituary of someone I knew or admired from afar.

Since many who have reached that milestone are also baby boomers like me, I’ve taken a special interest in their challenges. During a visit to New York, I attended a listening session at Gay Men’s Health Crisis and was profoundly moved by stories of isolation and loneliness, especially from straight men and women who felt a unique stigma. But I was an observer, not a participant.

A few months ago, when Jeff Berry at Test Positive Aware Network (TPAN) announced The Reunion Project in Chicago, I told him I’d like to attend, though I wasn’t a long-term survivor.

As I was finishing my latest book, What Our Friends Left Behind: Grief and Laughter in a Pandemic last summer, I began to consider the ever-present question: ‘what’s next?’ I had no lack of ideas: some that had been percolating for years, others that were new possibilities. But one kept nagging at me, in a good way.

You know the social media posts, the ones about grabbing all the joy you can find? About discovering joy in ordinary moments, not just big ones? I think they’re annoying. Full disclosure: it’s not easy for me to access joy. I know it when I see/feel it, but it seems to be avoiding me more than I’d like. 

The last year or so, I’ve concentrated on looking for joy in other people and their accomplishments. I jump on posts announcing a new grandchild or a work accomplishment, on reels of photos of once-in-a-lifetime vacations. I can feel the joy in the posts and I celebrate it, even though it’s someone else’s. And for a while, that was enough.

“My friends have overlooked my shortcomings, seen me through some dark days, and brightened up the rest of them. I'm glad to have them; I'm honored to have them; I'm lucky to have them.”

That’s a quote from one of my favorite movies, Murphy’s Romance. It’s from the speech given by Murphy, played by James Garner, at his surprise 60th birthday party. I was a lot younger than that when the movie came out in 1985. I’m older than that now. But I still feel the same way.

We just celebrated Valentine’s Day, which is preceded now by Galentine’s Day, to give friends their own day without the romantic pressure of February 14. Earlier this month, I promoted a holiday I found out about not long ago: 'Send A Card to a Friend Day' on February 7. The only requirement was that it be a physical card, sent via snail mail: emails or text messages don’t count.

I have friends who write in a variety of genres: romance, sci fi/fantasy, biography, horror, sports, children’s picture books; playwrights, too. They have poured their hearts and souls into their work, but they themselves are not obviously present on the page. The ones who write memoirs…that’s a whole different story.

When a friend of mine writes a memoir, I open the book already knowing a lot about them, but I am always, always surprised. Sometimes shocked and occasionally horrified, but in the end, always grateful that they found the courage to share their stories. 

Now and then, strangers will admit to me that they want to write a book. I always do my best to be enthusiastic and supportive. Life’s hard enough without being criticized for being brave enough to be that vulnerable. The last few years, I’ve amended my advice if they say the book will be a memoir: I ask them if they’re in therapy. Writing can be therapeutic, but revisiting our past can be an unpredictable emotional journey. We need all the support around us we can gather.

"Do you guys ever think about dying?"


For many people, this was the most shocking line in the blockbuster movie, Barbie. Up until then, the movie was as frothy as an egg cream. But then, the movie took a turn. Part of the shock was that it was not a line you ever hear in a comedy. And part of the shock was that it stopped us in our tracks, maybe taking you out of the movie itself.

If COVID accomplished anything, other than killing over a million people just in the US, it forced us to confront death and dying. We are a society that is averse to discussing or facing the one constant in all of our lives - death. In 2021, at the height of the pandemic, over 54% of Americans admitted they did not have a will.

As a rule, I don’t pay a lot of attention to celebrity book clubs. I mean, I wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to have one of my books featured, but it’s rare that they showcase a book that interests me. I also don’t read a lot of fiction, which certainly sets me apart from just about anyone. My research, my writing, my interests are centered in nonfiction.

No, this isn’t a post about how robots are going to replace our friends, or why Siri is a good substitute for human contact (it’s not). This is something else.

I recently started to dabble in ChatGPT, so this is based on my new and admittedly limited experience. I’d spent a few weeks reading articles from writers who are using it for various tasks, as well as learning the copyright implications. I’m not going in with the intention of using it to write books or blog posts or essays; I’m limiting myself to investigating how I can use it for marketing, such as book descriptions. But the more I studied it, the more it seemed like entering prompts was similar to diagramming a sentence.

March marks ten years since my first book - Friend Grief and Anger: When Your Friend Dies and No One Gives a Damn - was published. It took years to get to that point, a lot longer than I imagined when I first had the idea for the book in the spring of 2006. That was understandable, though, because I knew absolutely nothing about publishing and almost nothing about writing. I was beyond fortunate that at my first writing conference in January, 2011, I stumbled into a makeshift group of other writers at a similar stage. They remain among my closest friends and confidants. Along the way, I’ve wasted time and money as we all have, but not nearly as much as I could have had I not been so lucky that weekend. 

So, today I thought I’d share some of the resources that have helped me the most, in the hopes that writers reading this can also benefit.

I had a blog post all ready, but then the news popped up in my Facebook feed. News that was both expected and a shock: David Crosby died.

From time to time over the years I’ve written about the experience of grieving a celebrity, someone you’ve admired and loved but never met. Some people are taken aback by the depth of the grief they feel, and that’s understandable. They’re grieving for someone they’ve only known from a distance. So they wonder why they feel that loss so deeply.

The easy answer is that the celebrity represented an important part of your life. Maybe their music was playing while you were in bed with someone you loved. Maybe their TV show was “must see TV” with your Mom. Maybe watching them perform in person was something you shared with your closest friends. All of that could be true for people now grieving David Crosby. But there’s a deeper reason for me. 

I looked back at the end of year blog post I wrote last December. It was optimistic, bordering on delusional at times. But then, I had no idea what this year would bring.

• A few months ago I decided to put aside my work on turning Fag Hags into an online course. The idea came to me early in the pandemic, and made sense at the time. But as 2022 dragged on, it just felt like a burden. My enthusiasm was gone. I still think it’s a good idea; just not right now.

• I applied for a couple of opportunities that I did not get, but at least I tried. I also created a few opportunities that worked well.

Last week I participated in another one of Martie McNabb’s wonderful Show & Tales events. I highly recommend them, whether you decide to participate or just observe. It’s storytelling for everyone.

One of the participants told a story about seeing a guitarist perform. He was surprised to find out that, at 65, the man had only been playing for five years. How did he get so good in only five years, when playing well had been a lifelong struggle for the man telling the story? The guitarist explained that when you start you’re bad, but the more you practice, the better you get. And he described it with this advice:

I graduated from Nerinx Hall, a Catholic girls high school in Webster Groves, Missouri, run by the Sisters of Loretto, in 1970. That means my 50th reunion was in 2020. Except COVID-19 had other ideas. That first year, it seemed like a small sacrifice that was disappointing but not tragic. In an effort to support the seniors who had much better reasons to be disappointed - no prom or graduation ceremony -  we wrote letters of encouragement to them. Heidi Keibler Stevens wrote about that project in the Chicago Tribune.  

Last year, we were beginning to get vaccinated, but the school wasn’t hosting large gatherings, so we put off the reunion another year. At the beginning of this month, we finally met. And a song that came out when we were seniors kept popping into my head: 

Those were the days, my friend,
We thought they’d never end.
We’d sing and dance forever and a day.
We’d live the life we choose,
We’d fight and never lose,
For we were young and sure to have our way.

My last book - Fag Hags, Divas and Moms: The Legacy of Straight Women in the AIDS Community - took a lot longer to write than I expected. It wasn’t because I had writer’s block, or that my research was hard to compile. I had two major setbacks that I could not have predicted.

I started on the book in earnest in the fall of 2015. The first year of working on it was a whirlwind: interviewing women, doing deep dives into little-known corners of the HIV/AIDS community, revisiting those dark early days of the epidemic. I had so much help, from two small crowdfunding campaigns and incredible leads from friends and strangers alike. People were excited about the book and I hadn’t written a word.

I was in New York City in February, on a bus headed down Broadway towards Columbus Circle. Up ahead, I could see a digital billboard on 59th Street; okay, a lot of them. But the words on one caught my eye:

What’s The Best That Could Happen?

I did a double-take, assuming I’d misread it. It must have read ‘Worst’ not ‘Best’.

I was wrong. 

When we debate making an important decision, we often ask ourselves to imagine the worst-case scenario. But it got me wondering: do we ever ask ourselves to imagine the best-case scenario?