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ike her stories, Grace
Paley is short, often
humorous, and to the
point.
The diminutive doyenne of
Jewish fiction, whose stories
frequently document love
and loss among New York
City Jews, doesn't mince
words.
Why doesn't she include
much descriptive writing in
her stories?
"I'm bad at description,"
she said. "In just one story I
had description; I described
Washington Square Park,
and I think I did it pretty
well. But it's a small park."
Rather than setting out to
write a complete short story,
she scribbles down bits of
dialogue and ideas whenever
they come to her. Later she
looks over the pages to see if
they'll fit together with
anything else to make a
story.
It's a process that can take
years.
For example, she'd had the
idea for a section of "The
Immigrant Story," a tale
published in her 1974 book
Enormous Changes At The
Last Minute, for about 15
years before she found a way
to make it into a complete
story.
"I had the last part in
mind for a long time before I
wrote the story, but I knew
there was more to it," said
Ms. Paley, who now lives in
Thetford, Vt. "One day I
found this dialogue that I'd
written, about anger, and it
occurred to me I'd found a
way of telling the story. So
then I was able to put them
together."
Ms. Paley, who writes both
by hand and on the
typewriter, said there are
"periods where I don't do
much of anything. But most
of the time I keep notes that
hopefully become some-
thing."
"I go through these pages,
add a sentence, scratch out
another one, until I have
something that I think is
good," said Ms. Paley, whose
fourth collection of short
stores, Long Walks and In-
timate Talks, was published
this summer.
Well-known for her paci-
fism, Ms. Paley voiced her
objections to the Persian
Gulf War during the Beth

Alyssa Gabbay writes from
Baltimore, Md.

Am meeting held in a Mount
Washington home. Predic-
ting that if the war had con-
tinued, Israel would have
inevitably been dragged into
it, she said, "I never
understood why people here
haav_e not been against the
war.
"This war didn't have to go
this far," said Ms. Paley,
who has been arrested
several times for demon-
strating against war and
nuclear weapons.
"[President Bush] just push-
ed it because he wanted to
try out all those weapons."
Ms. Paley said she's stuck
with writing short stories
over the years because "I
think that way, in the
shorter form." She tried to
write a novel once, but
without luck. She said
perhaps someday she'll
make another go at it.
But writing short stories is
far from lucrative for her.
"Maybe it's possible for
some people to make a living
writing short stories, but not
for me. Most people have to
supplement it from
teaching," said Ms. Paley,
who taught at Sarah
Lawrence College for many
years.
Born in the Bronx in 1922
to Russian immigrants, Ms.
Paley began writing poetry
as a teenager. After marry-
ing Jess Paley, a cameraman
and filmmaker in 1942, and
giving birth to two children,
she tried her hand at short
stories.
She described the 1959 c=-\
publishing of her first collec-
tion of short stories, Little
Disturbances of Man, as
"pure luck." Ken McCor-
mick, a Doubleday editor
whose children played with
hers, read a few of her
stories one day while picking
up his children at her house.
"Re said, 'Write seven
more stories and I'll publish
them,' " she remembered.
"So I did."
Since then, she's published
two more collections of short
stories, as well as Leaning
Forward, a collection of
poems.
Three years ago, Ms. Paley
left New York City for Ver-
mont with her second hus-
band, Robert Nichols, who
wanted to retire in his state.
Her new location hasn't
greatly affected her work,
she said. She's kept her
apartment in New York and
visits frequently. And she
still writes about Jewish
New Yorkers.

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