Chasing Hemingway's Shadow

Thirty years ago when my husband Tom and I were on our honeymoon in northern Michigan, we stopped in to a bookstore in Petosky and saw a shelf of books about Ernest Hemingway. It turns out that Heminway's family had a summer cottage in the area and he spent every summer for the first 22 years of his life there.

I minored in American Literature at a Michigan university, and somehow I missed this information. But this started a fascination with this author that has lasted all the time since. From that point on I always felt a kinship with him, although we simply could not be more different.

Obviously he's a man, I'm a woman; he was born at the start of the 20th century and I was born in the middle; he traveled the world starting at a fairly young age, I've never been out of the United States (except for Canada, and I'm not sure that counts); he was a literary genius and I'm ..... well, more on that later.

I have a collection of about 40 books about Hemingway and it grows every year as people continue to write about him. But despite all that, just a few weeks ago I discovered something amazing that I had never heard before.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY RECEIVED THE PULITZER PRIZE ON THE VERY DAY I WAS BORN - May 4, 1953.

Is this some kind of sign?

It has been my wild-eyed dream that I receive the Pulitzer Prize for my work. Ever since I first heard about it, which was probably when I first started studying journalism nearly 40 years ago, I've been wanting to be on the receiving end of one of these prizes.

Not for fame and fortune, because most people who receive them have neither, but for the acknowledgement that my writing is good, that I'm special at what I do, that this brain I have struggled with all my life - fearful that it's just not smart enough - is capable of being extraordinary!

Although I'm happy and content with my life, sometimes in my dark moments it's hard not to feel like just an ordinary person, leading an unremarkable life in a small, unimportant town. Why would anyone be interested in my work? A Pulitzer Prize would negate all that.

I would have to travel to New York City. I would have to buy a fancy outfit. I would feel incredibly shy, nervous and tongue-tied. All the sophisticated people would think, "how quaint, it's hard to believe there are still simple, unspoiled people like her in the world."

Then I would return to my small town, my beloved family, my cozy writing studio in a renovated box factory and I would be content to carry on, knowing that at the end of my days my obituary will carry the words, "Pulitzer Prize winning author," just like my buddy Ernest.