Diary of a Mad Editor

I’m sitting at my usual table in my favorite coffee house — my fingers resting comfortably on my laptop. Outside, the sun is fiery bright and the air humid and smelling faintly of garbage. Cars pass by at a leisurely pace. Denizens of my small town walk by the open door. The radio sitting just two tables away from me is tuned to NPR and they’ve just announced the death of Edward Kennedy from brain cancer. But I am not thinking about Senator Kennedy. No doubt he will get his share of tributes. No, I’m thinking about another person who succumbed after a long battle with cancer — a professor who taught in the writing department at my alma mater Rowan University. A few of you who read this blog probably know who I’m referring to. I suspect most of you do not. I am talking about Denise Gess, author of the novels Red Whiskey Blues and Good Deeds. A largely unknown writer, she was by all accounts, a “writer’s writer.” A passionate teacher of creative writing who practiced what she preached.

I must confess that I didn’t really know the woman. Truthfully, that’s why it’s taken me a couple of days to write about her on this blog. Whenever I read “personal” tributes to someone the author did not know, I always throw-up in my mouth a little bit because it always comes across as a bit self-serving and I didn’t want to sound like one of those people.

In my case, I didn’t have any classes with Denise Guess and had only read a couple of her essays prior to her death. I met Denise on exactly one occasion — the evening of my thesis defense. During the reception after the hard part was over, I recall we had a nice conversation about writing short stories. I found her to be charming, generous, knowledgeable and possessing a passion for the written word that rivaled my own. At the end of our brief encounter, before departing, she told me I had a “rare gift” and lamented that she didn’t have the opportunity to have me in any of her classes. I suspect that she was only being nice, that her sentiments were motivated more by the spirit of the occasion than anything else. Nonetheless, her words touched me and reinforced every nice thing I’d heard about her from my fellow students.

So I’ve been thinking about Denise Gess this morning. Partly because of my one encounter with her and partly because we shared a common battle with the Big C. Mostly I’ve been thinking about how even the smallest, most seemingly insignificant interactions with people matter. How a single death can leave such a huge hole in the world. How so many other rare talents will no longer have the opportunity to know such a rare teacher.