I’m not just an old lady

A Q&A with acclaimed author Hilma Wolitzer, still writing at 94, after publishing 15 books

This is one in a series of Q&As with [b]old women, about their writing and their life. These popular posts generally go behind the paywall after 30 days. - Debbie

“I’m not just an old lady. I contain multitudes–all the stages of my life, all the ages I’ve ever been.” - Hilma Wolitzer

When Hilma Wolitzer came on my [B]older podcast two years ago, she was 92 and just about to publish her fifteenth book, a collection of short stories¹ spanning her career as a writer and culminating in a story she wrote after her husband² of almost 70 years died of COVID. “It was as if he vanished,” she told me on the podcast.

She and Morty both got Covid in April of 2020. They were taken to separate hospitals in New York City, but she never got to say good-bye. He died two days before she was released from the hospital and went home to her apartment. As she tells me in the opening seconds of the podcast (click to listen): “There were his slippers next to the bed. There was a pair of his drugstore eyeglasses. He seemed to have vanished and that was the sense I tried to depict in the final story of the collection: disappearance rather than dying.” 

Listen to the episode with Hilma

🎙️ The episode with Hilma Wolitzer is one of my favorites from the 100-plus episodes of the [B]older podcast.

Hilma Wolitzer at home in NYC.

Hilma is a marvelous writer, magically simple. Her language is straightforward, her syntax conversational. Her accounts of domestic life, relationships, and ordinary people remind me of Elizabeth Strout³. They both say so much about the human condition. 

After telling me about her final short story two years ago, I knew I wanted to get back in touch with Hilma. What follows is a short but poignant Q&A with Hilma about her personal and writing life. 

Hilma's stories of sharply observed domestic life were published in the Saturday Evening Post and Esquire in the 1960s and 1970s. She has taught writing at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, NYU, and Columbia. She's also the author of nine novels and the recipient of national awards and fellowships. More about her at hilmawolitzer.com.

DW: What is your morning ritual? Tell us everything! What time do you get up? Coffee? Do you journal? Do you take a walk? If you’re in writing mode, do you write everyday?

HW: I have the privilege of not having to set an alarm clock, of not having to go to a job or get children off to school–the perks of old age. I don’t write every day, but when I do write, I keep long, irregular hours. My fictional characters are better than any alarm clock. No, I don’t keep a journal, but coffee, the newspaper, strength exercises, and long walks are all parts of my daily routine, as they have always been.

DW: You are a critically-acclaimed and award-winning author and you’ve taught writing. What are your two or three best writing tips?

HW: Read. Revise.

DW: What’s it like to be 94? 

HW: Surprising! Whenever I wake up, I expect to be able to see, hear, and walk the way I did when I was younger…