Episode 20: Writing intimacy, pain, and hope with memoirist Kate Walter

Behind the Prose

Serendipity. Noun: the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way: a fortunate stroke of serendipity, a series of small serendipities When I interviewed writer and teacher Kate Walter in the second week of June, I’d already delayed the recording at least a week or two. Then, after a great interview about her memoir, Looking for a Kiss: A Chronicle of Downtown Heartbreak, a story about her struggle to understand a mysterious breakup after a 26-year relationship and frustrating and often fruitless efforts to re-enter the dating world, I became overwhelmed with life and decided to change the production schedule and release her episode in two weeks. Today, which at the time of writing this post, is Friday, June 26. Is it serendipity that today, the American landscape on marriage equality has changed forever? And that Kate’s memoir is about her decades-long relationship with a woman who ultimately walked off with more than just pieces of her heart? With the retirement savings they’d promised to share leaving Kate broke with a box of memories and a worthless piece of domestic partnership paper. There were no laws to protect Kate as she tried to right herself. No split assets. No alimony. No you can’t build a home with me, then bounce and not have to answer to . . . someone. And now, though it’s too late to have made Kate’s situation any more tolerable, the Supreme Court’s decision ruling that people can marry who the hell they want, is right on time. Kind of like that old church saying about God . . . “He may not come when you want him, but he always right on . . . Serendipity. Listen. Learn. Write.