The unmarried woman on the block began fielding mysterious calls from a Frenchman. The party line crackled to attention. When their conversations swerved out of English, the ladies listening in assumed the worst—no one else on the block spoke French. The ladies cut each other off, some in English, some in Yiddish, sometimes saying the same thing, sometimes not. And then: a thin, restrained question. “What is my life to you—a party?” The line went silent for a full minute, quiet enough to hear glasses clinking. And then: French, less plaintive this time, followed by a gentle click.
writer. editor. doodler. er.
Writings in the Raw
Julia Halprin Jackson
writer. editor. doodler. er.
I write.
I doodle.
I'm at work on my first book, a collection of linked short stories that follows a community of expatriates living on the southern coast of Spain.
I care about stuff. Like curing type 1 diabetes. And marriage equality. And rights for immigrants. And public radio. And espanol. And Frank O'Hara and Jennifer Egan and Federico Garcia Lorca and Tony Kushner. You know, cool stuff.
I make postcards that are also stories.
Sometimes I read stories and poems out loud.
Sometimes I go to conferences.
You can find my short stories, essays, poems and flash fictio in a variety of places in print and online. If you Google really hard, you might find the two short radio pieces I produced on a badass NPR affiliate in San Francisco.
This is where you can go to find out who I am.