She Made Me A Food Writer | Ruth Reichl
I have just learned a word that perfectly describes Mary Frances Fisher: she was oxygeusealeptic, a word I plan to start using with some regularity. (Oxygeusea is an extreme sense of taste.)
In 1980, when an editor at Ms. Magazine called to ask if I had ever heard of MFK Fisher I was a fledgling writer. I immediately began quoting my favorite author, leaning heavily on her description of eating tangerines.
“Great,” the editor replied, “we’d like you to profile her for the magazine.”
I was thrilled – and terrified. So nervous, in fact, that I couldn’t bring myself to telephone the author who’d had such a big influence on me. I wrote her a letter – which set the tone for the relationship we had over the next fifteen or so years. Although we met often, we never once spoke on the phone.
I thought about Mary Frances a few days ago when I was on a panel about burnout with actor Jonathan Majors, cartoonist Adrien Tomine and Tricia Hersey of the Nap Ministry. A young writer stood up to ask a question: he said he had a problem with perfectionism, and could never bring himself to turn a piece in until it was as good as it could possibly be. It made me recall the best piece of advice I’ve ever been given a writer. When the Los Angeles Times offered me a job in 1984, I was reluctant to take it. “Do it!” said Mary Frances. “You’re polishing your pieces as if they were jewels, agonizing over every word. You need to work at a newspaper where an editor will tell you he needs 1000 words in an hour. You write them, knowing they’re not very good. Knowing too that tomorrow they’ll be lining somebody’s birdcage. That’s the only way you’re ever really going to learn your craft.”
I took the job.
Mary Frances was right.
