Adair Lara Is Naked and Drunk
Posted by Donna Levin on April 26, 2010 | READ & ADD COMMENTS BELOWI'm not good at faking (more's the pity) so I'm going to come right out and say that Adair Lara is a "close, personal friend of mine," as a certain entertainer was famous for saying -- and as I am quite proud to say in this case. She was a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle for fifteen years which made her a local celeb. I have gone about the city with her and watched strange women (not "odd" women, just women I don't know) clasp her arm up to the elbow and effuse, "M-my God, you're writing about my life!"
Four years before leaving the Chronicle in 2005, Adair had published Hold
Me Close, Let Me Go, a memoir of her daughter's adolescence, with Broadways
Books. (She gives me credit for the title, but all I did was suggest
a way to condense a longer version.) In toto, her books now number
eleven. That's right -- eleven. More than most people read
in two years. Sigh.
In August Ten Speed Press is releasing a new edition of her latest:
Naked, Drunk and Writing. You won't be disappointed when you
find out that it's more about writing than being naked or drunk, though
she knows plenty about all three. It's a distillation of everything
she's learned and taught over a long (she started
very young) writing and teaching career.
You can also take a first-person writing class with the 3D Adair, but
as of now she is sold out until September. The key words here are,
"move quickly," and the first move is to go to her website at
www.AdairLara.com.
