Until my granddaughter, Isabelle Eva, was born in 2006, I had no clue just how complicated—and full of wonder—the role of grandmother could be. But when I looked to the one place I always turn for wisdom—books—I couldn’t find anything that addressed my alternately joyful, perplexing, painful—sometimes comical but always profound—new status. And so Eye of My Heart: 27 Writers Reveal the Hidden Pleasures and Perils of Being a Grandmother was born.
I have been working as an essayist and journalist for twenty-five years. Some of the magazines in which my articles have appeared are: O, The Oprah Magazine (where I’ve been a contributing writer), Time, More, National Geographic Traveler, Food & Wine, Glamour, People, Redbook, Self, Tricycle, Utne Reader, and Vogue.
Like Eye of My Heart, my last book, Women Who Run with the Poodles: Myths and Tips for Honoring Your Mood Swings, was inspired by my own experience. In the 1990s I was a contributing editor at Self, and my beat there fell under the general heading of personal development. After taking one self-help workshop too many, I decided it was high time to send my inner child to summer camp. And so I wrote Poodles, which, according to Entertainment Weekly, “brilliantly parodies the women’s ‘improvement’ tomes that bloat bookstore shelves.” I didn’t mean to suggest that personal growth is all bad, but simply that we women are already so prone to feeling terrible about ourselves that real growth may lie in accepting ourselves just as we are—bad attitudes, cellulite and all.
I trained as an actress and in my twenties I began writing plays. My work has been produced at theatres around the country and in Europe, and published by Dramatists Play Service. Two plays, Jacob’s Ladder and Camp Paradox, were produced Off-Broadway at the WPA Theatre, and another play, Polishing Silver, was commissioned by the Actors Theatre of Louisville. I have been playwright-in-residence at Trinity College, Hartford, and a resident fellow at the Millay Colony for the Arts.
I have a son, Clay McLachlan, an exceptional photographer, who with his wife, Tamar, and their daughters, Isabelle Eva and Azalia Luce (born in 2009), divide their time between Paris and Italy.
My husband, Hugh Delehanty (aka G-Daddy), and I live in Washington, DC.
Granddaughter photos courtesy of Clay McLachlan