Name Dropper
Photo by Brian Mello
I’m returning to an old habit that makes me feel creepy and insecure: name-dropping. But name-dropping is necessary to get my work read and published according to a workshop on gearing up for new book releases. The message was clear: get well-known names to review your work. The names on your book jacket are more important than the review itself. I have a new memoir to release by the end of 2024, so I have been hitting up the biggest celebrities mentioned in this book that I can contact.
The lead in this new book, Swollen Appetite, is 29-year-old me. Sandra-then loved to name-drop. I’ve been letting you know who I know since moving to California in 1983. Somehow, that meant I was bound to be an A-lister. Back then, you needed to know I was closer than close, I was in.
Near our apartment is a cemetery I walk through almost every day. I go there to get my blood pumping and gather ideas, shake off work and worry. Under a big sky, I unscrew the tight lid of my brain. I pass beneath a canopy of cherry blossoms and come out into a clearing where new, distinctly legible marble headstones cluster. The face of a stone angel warms in the late morning sun. Down in the valley is a cannon from the Civil War with grave markers so eroded, they’re almost smooth. Nameless. Perched on the hill a giant pyramid mausoleum points to the sky, and along the manicured hilltop are the biggest names in Bay Area history: Tilden, Morgan, Merritt, Wong, and Crockett.
A pal told me not to pick up any hitchhikers on these walks. She says lost souls are looking for a ride out. Ghost riders lurk and grab ankles. That’s what I used to do - try to catch a ride out of my life into someone else’s. The bigger the name, the faster the car.
Now, dropping names is the way of the world. It’s not using someone else to be connected to them. The connections are meant to be superficial and plentiful. Nobody’s using anybody. We all ride as many coattails as possible by reposting – the word-of-mouth attention social media churns. What’s different about me 30 years later than the young woman in Swollen Appetite is now I have a body of well-crafted work I am proud to share.
Under the branches of a bushy cedar, I duck to read an old tombstone. My face finds a spider web and I go on high alert. The web feels alive, stretchy, and sticky, and I imagine eight long legs crawling in my hair.
I’m like a spider. I spin a web of words to lure you in. Writers need readers as much as spiders need flies. Stories are what matter and mine’s worth telling. I wonder if anyone will ever drop my name. Please, please do.
