The Writing Life: Me and the Other Naomi Wolf by Stan Jones

On my website, I have a form where people can sign up to be notified by email when a new volume comes out in my Nathan Active mystery series.

When the latest book, TUNDRA KILL, became available a few months ago, I sent out hundreds of such notices. This resulted in a number of kind responses from Nathan Active fans, to which I replied with equally kind thanks.

Then I realized that one of the people who’d emailed had a name that rang a bell: Naomi Wolf. “Wait,” the bell said. “Naomi Wolf? Isn’t there a famous writer by that name?” I Googled and found that there was indeed such a writer. The question was, was my Naomi Wolf the famous Naomi Wolf? I emailed back on that point and, it turned out, she was not the famous one. So, I inquired further, what’s it like to share a name with someone famous? 

My Naomi Wolf responded with this wonderfully funny and charming account of what happens when your namesake becomes a celebrity:

What's it like? In a word, annoying. In 1990 just before 'The Beauty Myth' was published she called me, having seen my name listed in the Manhattan phone book. After a year at Oxford she was returning to New York and she wanted to warn me that I might get a lot of phone calls.

As time and the calls for her increased, I asked the callers to tell her the least she could do was send me a copy of her book. She never did. 

The nicest caller was Gloria Steinem, who apologized profusely for disturbing me (what a great lady she is!). Eventually I changed my name in the phone book to my first initial and my maiden name plus Wolf.

Then Ms. Wolf started seeing my dentist. She would make appointments and never show up. They knew I would never do that without calling to cancel, and they began referring to me as Naomi Wolf, The Original. 

When I moved to Boston eight years ago I brought my dental records and my new dentist looked from my mouth to the x-rays and proclaimed that they weren't mine. 'This person has had a lot more dental work than you have,' he said. A new person in the old office had given me the wrong ones. 

So, I'm glad she's out of my life, though I do check her reviews. I have to give her credit for some of the things she's done for the Women's Movement. 

This is probably a longer answer to your question than you expected, but there it is.

May the Force be with you.

...........The Other Naomi

And there it is, indeed, to quote The Other Naomi. More proof that felicity is where you find it, eh?

Stan Jones is a native of Alaska. He has been a Bush pilot, an award-winning journalist, and an environmentalist. He is the author of the Nathan Active mystery series and co-author of "The Spill: Personal Stories from the Exxon Valdez Disaster." He lives in Anchorage. His web page is www.sjbooks.com, his Facebook page is www.facebook.com/StansBooks, and he welcomes reader email at sj.alaska@gmail.com