TAKE A LOOK AT MY ESSAYS.

Jenny Milchman's "Made it Moment"  

How I got Joyce Carol Oates to read the first chapter of my unpublished novel and then some: 

Back in the summer of 2004, after reading that Joyce Carol Oates was giving an author talk at a local library, I decided to print out the first chapter of my novel, Lily Steps Out (Penumbra Publishing 2012), enclose it in a  SASE and bring it to the reading. 

EAST HAMPTON STAR: 

Going Imogi 

I thought I was up on things  when I learned to text. And though my aging thumbs refused to 

fly across the keypad of my cellphone --treck was more like it--once I got the hang of using 

the tiny microphone to record, it took only minutes to send a message. Easy as pie. And quick! 

Resolution Redux 

 It’s that time of year folks, the holidays are over. We spent too much, ate too much, and drank too much. The season of toomuchnesshas gutted us and is gone. Time now to buckle down and stop having so much fun. Resolutions anyone? 

FIRE ISLAND NEWS:  

The Gargoyle Hunters

by John Freeman Gill

Fiction

Vintage Books $16.95 

Fact, fiction, funny and sad, “The Gargoyle Hunters” is a story of a city kid growing up in a brownstone in 1974. This isn’t any city kid. This is born and bred New Yorker John Freeman Gill, award-winning and anthologized real estate and architectural writer who turns his impressive knowledge into a novel. Griffin Watts, his fictionalized 13 year-old self, is the narrator.  

Saving Fire Island from Robert Moses:

The Fight for a National Seashore”

by Christopher Verga

History Press $21.99

It may take a village to raise a child, but it took 17 Fire Island villages to take down Robert Moses. It was no small task to tackle the power broker who ruled the roadways with a finger snap in the 60s, but Moses had his hands full when he set his mind on a four-lane highway through the barrier beaches of the South Shore. When you consider his penchant for roads and causeways, you might say Moses was a driven man. I mean that literally—having never bothered getting a driver’s license, he was chauffeured around by state-provided handler

Mascara, Mirth & Mayhem:

Independence Day on Fire Island 

Photography by Susan Kravitz

KMW Studios $34.95 

When Editor Shosanna McCollum asked me to review a book on the invasion of the Pines in Fire Island, I thought deer, ticks and Lyme disease. Not a very upbeat topic to wind down this season’s reviews. What a surprise I was in for!