On Heather’s letter, and on her previous letters.
New York City
December 27, 2000
Dear Readers,
Today’s letter comes from Heather O’Neill in Montreal. It’s about an unexpected visit from her mother, which gives it a certain bookend quality: her last letter, which we published in October, was about a trip to an amusement park with her father.
Heather and Aliza Pollack are the only Open Letters correspondents who’ve contributed a letter to each of our three volumes; Heather’s first letter, which appeared in July, was about teaching poetry to sixth graders, and it was another rare gem.
For additional O’Neill biography, please consult Jonathan Goldstein’s editor’s letter about her first letter, which includes a scene of Heather throwing a Glad bag of her mother’s possessions out the window, a nice bit of foreshadowing.
We’re still on our holiday schedule this week; we’ll most likely leave this letter in place until Friday. Our regular daily schedule resumes on Monday, when the final week of volume three begins: a special collection of letters about endings.
Happy holidays.
Yours truly,
