Who the #@%? is Jincy?

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An aging, bitter, unpleasant woman living in Escondido, California, who spends her days parsing the sentences of total strangers and her nights teaching and writing. Sometimes, late at night, in the dark, she laughs inappropriately.

Jincy at a signing at Warwick's La Jolla

If you can read this, you’re too close.

31 Comments Who the #@%? is Jincy?

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  5. Pamela Naatz-Runner

    I’m sitting in the cafe at the ESCO Barnes & Noble and I think they’re going to ask me to leave: I can’t control this ridiculous laughter that is burbling out of me as I’m reading The Writing Class. Thanks. Yesterday I was walking 5 unhappy miles and lessened the agony of the trek by beginning a list of “Words That Do What They Say.” I started with FAVORITE.

  6. Jincy Willett

    Glad you’re enjoying it! If you can give me more Words That Do What They Say, I’d be happy to start a list here. I’m just not yet sure what they are…

  7. Sarah

    I picked up a copy of “The writing class” to entertain me on a flight, and I haven’t been able to concentrate on anything else until I had read it. I no sooner did so, than I had to download an audio version of “Amy falls down” so that I can continue to engage with the lives of such entertaining characters. I shall miss them when I reach the end of this book.

  8. Michelle

    I just finished “Amy Falls Down”, and it kept me wondering what was going to happen next to Amy Gallup. I could relate to her character because I don’t suffer fools lightly either, and find the uprising of popularity of e-books vs paper quite sad, to be honest. Thank you for writing such a full-bodied and robust character, and for using such rich vocabulary and not talking down to me (the reader). Now I need to sink my teeth into your other books.

  9. Karen

    I am leading my book club on discussion questions tomorrow, 6/28, regarding Amy Falls Down. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and want to get my friends involved in a wonderful discussion.

    Can you provide book club discussion questions? Thank you.

  10. Lynette Turoczy

    I’m on page 55 of “Amy Falls Down” and I just had to find out about you and if you’ve written more books. I’m so glad that you have. I get very grouchy when I don’t have a good book to read. ( a 65-year-old fan from Pennsylvania)

  11. Billy from Philly

    Hi Jincy, I’m gonna come off like a real fanboy here, but a friend sent me a copy Jenny and the Jaws of Life and I read it and if you were to ask me me right now who is my favorite author and tell me I only had 5 seconds to answer, I’d probably blurt out your name. You deserve to be rich and famous and involved in a juicy scandal from time to time.

  12. Jon

    Good morning. If I would like to write to you directly concerning one of your short stories, is that possible? Well, I guess its possible, but is it welcome?

    I’m currently in a literature class where students present a work of literature to the class, and I’ve chosen one of yours. Just wondering if we could have a talk about the story.

    Anyway, thanks.

    Fellow RI’er….Jon

  13. benne from San Diego

    Not to be cliche, but I could not stop audibly laughing and silently crying throughout Jenny and the Jaws of Life. I’ve already sent 1/2 dozen copies out to friends. Great work!

  14. Bettyjane Wylie

    My son had a Bassett hound with an incredible nose. John could take a dry dog biscuit and run it over the grass as he ran in a random pattern. Then he’d bring the dog out and Joey would sniff his way along the trail unerringly. I thought it must be interesting to be inside Joey’s head with that kind of perception. Jincy Willett has that kind of strange uncanny perception. You had to be there, but since you’re not thank goodness she writes about it for you.

  15. Beth Watt

    Hi, Usually read historical fiction. Haven’t read a book that actually makes me laugh in a long time. What a pleasant way to spend the day.

    Are there book club discussion questions for Amy Falls Down?

  16. Jincy

    So glad you enjoyed it. As far as I know, there aren’t any book club discussion questions for this one. If you like, I’ll try to come up with some myself. (Publishers usually don’t ask writers for these, which I’ve always thought was kind of odd.)

  17. Jon

    Good Morning. I sent you an email a few days ago inquiring about the possibility of an online workshop. I’m just following up here. Thank you.

  18. Merritt Moseley

    Dear Jincey, I have just finished Winner of the National Book Award and want to tell you that no book has brought me so much pleasure in some years. Thank you. Now ordering your other novels.

  19. Barby

    Jincy’s writing is…well, see there? The fact that I used her first name tells you everything. Jincy’s writing is intimate. So intimate you sometimes have to look away. But then you find yourself in the fold of her words as though you’re in her presence sitting on her sofa, your feet tucked under you, a glass of wine in your hand, enraptured by the story she’s telling you. By the end of the story, you’re drunk. The throw pillows are on the floor. Jincy is asleep, but you are awake, going over parts of the story, pulling from them the meaning that is just beyond your immediate understanding, but you know it’s there…and it’s good.

  20. Barby

    Jincy’s writing is…well, see there? The fact that I used her first name tells you everything. Jincy’s writing is intimate. So intimate you sometimes have to look away. But then you find yourself in the fold of her words as though you’re in her presence sitting on her sofa, your feet tucked under you, a glass of wine in your hand, enraptured by the story she’s telling you. By the end of the story, you’re drunk. The throw pillows are on the floor. Jincy is asleep, but you are awake, going over parts of the story, pulling from them the meaning that is just beyond your immediate understanding, but you know it’s there…and it’s good.

  21. Peggie Partello

    I am absolutely thrilled to learn that you have a new Amy Gallup book coming out in August. I have just enough time to reread the first two (again). Thank you!!

  22. Melissa McWhinney

    I have just discovered you! Well, maybe others knew about you but my discovery is mine. I am trying to remember how I learned about you, and I think it was from either the NY Times or the Boston Globe’s conversation with some writer I don’t remember, who was reading you and loving your writing. And now here you are in my life. A cranky smart woman not afraid to be funny? You are my sister. Keep writing. I just ordered your others books after starting with “Winner of the National Book Award”. Much love and more power to you!

  23. Julia Douthwaite Viglione

    I just finished “Amy Falls Down” and I’ve read all your other books too. Please write more! You are the only writer I know who not only validates our learning (loved the ref to “The Death of Ivan Ilych”!) but also makes us burst into loud belly laughs that are so healthy and fun. Thank you for all that! And you don’t have to write more, of course. You can do whatever you want… but this reader will follow you whatever you do (tastefully, from afar).

  24. Janelle Bailey

    I feel silly to have only recently discovered you and your writing, Jincy. I credit a comment on an article about the best literature and/or writers out of San Diego, which indicated that the authors of said article had erred in omitting you and also indicating that David Sedaris calls you his muse. While I did purchase some of those other authors’ works, I was most excited about and have just started with yours: beginning with The Writing Class. Having just begun, I admit being a little bummed that this box doesn’t read “Kibbitzers.” And I am also very pleased to find a long-time AP acquaintance, Jackie Laba, to have left a brief comment here oh, seven years ago. What good work you’ve done, Jincy! So pleased to meet you…well, your writing…and seemingly through it also you. 🙂

  25. Patricia Donahue

    I retired three years ago after 35 years of teaching lit/writing at a liberal arts college in the east. Was educated at Irvine. Family came “originally” from RI, and I’ve spent a great deal of time there. Guess I’m trying to establish points of relation (including the fact that I’m back in CA). Have never written a fan letter before, but would have, to Barbara Pym, if she’d been alive when I discovered her. Glad you are (we’re close in age), so I can tell you how grateful I am to have found you. Please write more. Lots. Dozens of books. As long as I’m alive, I’ll keep reading.

  26. Jincy Willett

    Patricia, Thanks so much, and glad to hear from you. Re points of relation–I grew up in the Edgewood section of Cranston, and after marrying lived on the East side of Prov, a mile from Brown, where my husband was a professor. I still miss it. Trying to come up with an idea for, I guess, another Amy book. Anyway, keep reading!

  27. Tom Crippen

    I was a student of yours 40 years ago. You were great then; it’s nice to know you’re great now.

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