Mag Dimond
Author Interview - Mag Dimond
Author who inspires: Joan Didion … She is a language master, an observer with a keen eye for what is true and real on the physical, psychological, and social level. Her word mastery takes my breath away. When you read an essay of hers, you inhabit her mind, you get to know this keenly intelligent, sensitive, and often comic personality. Hers is a mind you can trust, always. As a writer who loves sensory detail and the telling of the truth, I’m right at home in her essays. Ever since Slouching Towards Bethlehem, that landmark collection of pieces published in the late 60’s, I have paid attention to the wisdom of her observations.
Author Interview - Mag Dimond
Favorite Place to Read a Book: In bed in the dark of evening, with my Maine Coon cat on the pillow beside me and my dog at my feet. There is an intimacy, a coziness that soothes mind and body when you read a good book late in the evening; you are kept company in the most wonderful of ways as you approach the oblivion that is sleep. There are always several books lying on my bed waiting to be picked up.
Book character to be stuck in elevator with: Leopold Bloom from Joyce’s Ulysses. He and I are very much alike: we are both wanderers and observers of the world we inhabit. We are also outsiders in some ways, and we have spacious, open hearts. I discovered Bloom a long time ago in an exciting seminar in graduate school, and I have thought about him a lot since then. James Joyce is a literary genius whose personality was occasionally problematic but who created a lovable hero in Bloom. Leopold Bloom loved his fellow man/woman, he loved food, he was romantic, and was frequently judged for being odd. His journey through one day in Dublin is an extraordinary epic, and a great tribute to the Irish people of that city. I’d love to ask Bloom how it was that he maintained his equanimity in the midst of all the suffering, disregard, and ignorance he witnessed.
Author Interview - Mag Dimond
Moment I wanted to become an author: I was eleven years old when my stepfather gave me a leather-bound journal at the beginning of our first year in Italy (Florence in particular). I cherished this little book and wrote in it faithfully each night. I found myself as I wrote. I was an only kid, lonely much of the time, and the journal soon became my friend. I gradually began to understand what was important to me: finding love, loving food, books, art, my cats, asking burning questions about adult behavior, and the adventure of being an expatriate living in Italy. I have been chronicling my life ever since…
Hardback, paperback, e-book or audiobook: I LOVE hardback books, especially when they’re new and smell of printer’s ink (or perhaps that’s my overactive imagination!). I also love paperbacks because they’re lightweight and easy to stuff in a purse or even in a jacket pocket. Do not love e-books – reading on a screen has never felt authentic to me. There are no pages to sniff, paper to run your fingers over …
The last book I read: Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson…. A sumptuous, beautifully designed book about one of the most mysterious geniuses in Western culture. Not only did I relish how beautifully the book was put together (fitting, since the subject was a great artist dedicated to creating beauty and inventing tools for man’s wellbeing) – but I also loved becoming part of the story of Leonardo himself as he struggled through his artistic career in Florence, Milan, Rome … Having lived in Florence and Rome and fantasized about the Renaissance painters who inhabited the cobbled streets, I felt right at home following the trials and occasional triumphs of Leonardo’s life. I also discovered that he and I shared a couple of interesting qualities: a propensity for invention and a difficulty completing tasks!
Author Interview - Mag Dimond
Pen & paper or computer: There’s nothing more satisfying than holding a beautiful fountain pen in your hands and writing in a notebook with good paper, watching the teal green ink spread across the page. This is akin to meditating on the aesthetics of writing… On the other hand, at the computer the words come faster, and its less tiring to keep the whole process going, and going, and going.
Book character I’d be best friends with: Anna Karenina. She was a woman who hungered – as I have hungered – for real love and intimacy, who needed to be cherished and witnessed by a man. She was ultimately punished for this hunger of hers. She went against society’s norms (in the late nineteenth century Russia, women were tied to their husbands in marriage and ostracized if they didn’t conform), and even the giant passion she felt for Vronsky couldn’t withstand the despair she experienced in exile from her society and from her little son. She lost any sense of rationality and took her life. I am sure I would have stood by her in her difficult journey.
Author Interview - Mag Dimond
If I wasn’t an author, I’d be: A wildlife photographer, a clothing designer, a meditation teacher, a chef. All these fit with avenues I’ve pursued in my life thus far…
Favorite decade for fashion: The Twenties – those flapper dresses were SO daring and so cool - of course better looking if you were svelte and long legged, but still one can dream, right?
Place I’d most like to travel: I want to see the pyramids of Egypt, I want to go to Tibet and meet the Tibetans who live there, I want to go back to Africa again to be with the elephants, I want to return (of course) to Italy, my other home.
My signature drink: Negroni – a marvelous Campari/gin concoction served in a martini glass; it has a brilliant ruby red color, a bracing bitter flavor, a lovely orange slice for good measure, and it makes me feel identified with Italian culture.
Favorite artist: Matisse. He was a master of color and he painted women with great affection and delight. His paintings are feasts for the eyes, whether it was quirky interior spaces or landscapes or portraits. He, like Monet, was a model of the dedicated artist, painting tirelessly into old age. And like Monet too, there is the joy and celebration of life in his art
Number one on bucket list: Meet with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India, or wherever he might be available. I want to be seen by him, to touch his hand, and feel his love. He is my number one hero in this life. He inspires love, compassion, the cultivation of wisdom, and he has one of the best laughs of any teacher I’ve ever listened to!
Author Interview - Mag Dimond
