PAULA WHYMAN
Curious?
You may have noticed I like to ask questions. When I was a little kid, a family member who shall remain nameless (let's just say she was married to my uncle), babysat for me. She told my mother I asked too many questions. My mother, being my staunch defender, didn't let her babysit anymore. So this unfortunate habit of questioning was encouraged, and I still do it.
There's very little that I don't want to know, and what I can't know for sure, I imagine. When I meet someone for the first time, or even when I see a stranger on the subway, I imagine what they were like in high school. I can usually tell the women who peaked too early, and the men who used to be jocks (they're paunchy and balding, and that whole head-shaving thing? It's not fooling anyone). Do people try to imagine what I was like in high school? (Let's just say "late bloomer" and leave it at that...)
I have a theory that people believe that, on the inside at least, they are still exactly like they were in high school. And maybe that's the problem. Think I'm wrong? I was a smartypants then, too.
There's very little that I don't want to know, and what I can't know for sure, I imagine. When I meet someone for the first time, or even when I see a stranger on the subway, I imagine what they were like in high school. I can usually tell the women who peaked too early, and the men who used to be jocks (they're paunchy and balding, and that whole head-shaving thing? It's not fooling anyone). Do people try to imagine what I was like in high school? (Let's just say "late bloomer" and leave it at that...)
I have a theory that people believe that, on the inside at least, they are still exactly like they were in high school. And maybe that's the problem. Think I'm wrong? I was a smartypants then, too.
Selected Works
Fiction
A young woman struggles with an unplanned pregnancy.
Sexual and racial tensions in a classroom threaten to explode as a young teen faces choices that will haunt her in adulthood. ORDER HERE
Two American teens go on their first European trip and get into trouble.
A young girl in Thailand is sold into prostitution by her mother.
A woman is haunted by events from the past that threaten to disturb her domestic life.
A man battles neighbors to build his dream house, while his son resists the pull of the family heritage.
A psychologist confuses fantasy and reality as she travels alone for the first time after her divorce.
Humor
Dining out with dietary issues, and Twizzlers. From the Washington Post.
KITCHEN SINK LINKS
Washington Independent Review of Books
Washington's nonprofit online book review
Semi-Charmed Life: Surviving at the Center of the Universe
first-person column on absurdities of suburban life
Bethesda World News
Bethesda's own parody newspaper
When the Menu Is a Minefield
Washington Post Food section, on dining out with dietary issues
Ode to the Hand Dryers of La Guardia
guest post for Susan Coll's blog
Rumpus Mini-Interview #19
I interview visual artist Tim Guthrie about his unusual anti-war project.
Work-in-Progress: A blog by Leslie Pietrzyk
Explores the Creative Process
Alternate Sides: A blog by Susan Coll
Adventures Along the Northeast Corridor
Finding Josephine
Writer Dionne Ford's blog
Poetry in the Arts
Publisher of the poetry journal, Ardent! - and fine books of poetry by invitation.
Biography
In Mansfield Studio at MacDowell Colony; photo by Jo Eldredge Morrissey
Ms. Whyman's commentary has been featured on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.” Her humor essays have appeared in the Washington Post’s Style and Food sections, and the Sunday magazine. Her mini-interviews have appeared in The Rumpus.
She has been a visiting writer for the Pen/Faulkner Foundation's Writers in Schools program in Washington, DC, and The Hudson Review's Writers in Schools/College Now program in New York. Her fiction is part of the curriculum at The Young Women's Leadership School in Harlem. She has led literature classes at Politics & Prose, the independent bookstore in Washington, DC.
She created and wrote the weekly column, Semi-Charmed Life: Surviving at the Center of the Universe, which was featured on Bethesda Magazine's website. Ms. Whyman is also the creator and editor of Bethesda World News, an online parody newspaper.
Ms. Whyman was born in Washington, DC, and grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland. She graduated with an MFA in literature from The American University, where she received the Myra Sklarew Thesis Award. Before attending graduate school, she was a book development editor with the American Psychological Association, as well as a bar-back, a meeting planner, an editor of cheesy real estate guides, a clerk in a custom T-shirt and gag emporium, a camp counselor, and a Solid Gold dancer. She has always been a writer.
