Me
I write fiction, poetry and memoir, make jewelry for sale, and live in New York City. I started this blog for promotional purposes but quickly became addicted to the form, and now neglect my income-producing work, housework and mental health to keep you all updated on whatever is knocking around in my head.
I’ve published books, which you can buy! Men (Soho Press, 1988), Me and You (Soho, 1990) and The Boy on the Green Bicycle (Soho, 1999). They’re out of print but can be found online very cheap. I’ve also written for The New York Times, among other publications, and done extensive editing work. I am available for any kind of editing, rewriting, ghostwriting and fiction/story evaluation. I’m very good at helping people with novels. Check it out.
My email is margaret.diehl@gmail.com, and that works for paypal if you’d like to contribute to a poor writer’s ability to buy books, etc.
Mostly in the Afternoon 
The Vampire, by Charles Baudelaire
You that, like a dagger’s thrust,
Have entered my complaining heart,
You that, stronger than a host
Of demons, came, wild yet prepared;
Within my mind’s humility
You made your bed and your domain;
— Infamous one who’s bound to me
Like any felon by his chain,
Like a gambler by his games,
Like the bottle and the sot,
Like the worms in one’s remains,
— Damn you! Damnation be your lot!
I’ve begged the merciful, swift sword
To overcome my liberty —
To poison I have said the word:
Save me from poltroonery.
Alas the sword! Alas the poison!
Contemptuous, they spoke to me:
“You never can deserve remission
Of your accursed slavery,
“Imbecile! — If our deadly empire
Freed you from your present fate,
Your kiss would soon resuscitate
The cold cadaver of your vampire!”
Hi Margaret:
I’ve been a fan of your work since 1991, when I first read Men. I was 19 at the time; I’ve re-read Men every year since, and always take away something new. Now, that’s talent. I can’t write worth a damn (beyond the occasional amusing email or Facebook post), which multiplies my awe. I’m a librarian and avid fiction devotee, and your first novel always makes my top ten list. I’ve read the others and enjoyed as well, but Men takes the cake. I’m sure you take that compliment with a mixture of pride and frustration. Sorry about that.
Anyway, I finally Googled you and here I am. Turns out I also love your jewelry, and I just ordered myself a necklace for Christmas.
I lived in NYC, among other places (Berkeley, SF, Boston, Providence, Cape Cod), throughout the 90s, and I, too, grew up in Montclair…33 Watchung Ave, near the corner of Edgemont Rd. My parents are still there. My husband & I lived on the top floor of a massive house at 162 Union Street while I attended grad school…which house was yours?
I’d go on and on, but I have a two-year-old standing in front of me in pink fleece feet pajamas with the word “Sweet” stitched on the front, snot smeared across her cheek, and huge wet brown eyes, pleading with me to open her Play-Doh. My beloved & geriatric cat Fred is also valiantly working on a hairball over the newly-cleaned carpet. Another time, then.
I look forward to delving into your blog over the holidays.
Cheers, Trish Connolly Accetta
My younger sister Sue was a good friend of Jimmy’s at Bradford School; I met him at our house when he and Sue were 9 or 10. Remarkably polite and engaging, his bicycle death sent nightmares out beyond your family. Forty five years later, last night, I googled his name – unexpectedly – not having thought of it in the intervening time, doubting he himself would appear, expecting instead a thousand rock stars and trash collectors by the same name. Surprised by your book. My older sister Mona baby sat you all a few times in the mid-fifties, until your dad drove her home at 2 AM wandering up Normal Avenue drunkenly from side to side (no traffic), gunned past the Montclair Heights railroad station until she started screaming “You missed the house, You missed the house!” She woke my parents, end of babysitting. Recalls when she went upstairs to check, two frightening red eyes drilled at her in the dark in the boys’ bedroom…with the lights on and waking the boys, an FAO Schwartz-ish lion. Mona was then 13. Memory fragments that fit into a puzzling and endless quilt. Terence Mulligan
Thanks for writing, Terence. I’m touched that you Googled Jimmy after all these years. Tomorrow would be his 59th birthday. I don’t remember your sisters but I’m glad Daddy didn’t manage to kill one…it sounds terrifying. I was usually in bed before he got like that.
Margaret, Not to be flippant, but as consolation, remember, in one of the parallel universes of String Theory, in that nearby universe, there was no bicycle accident. One day, as science makes breakthroughs, the gap between us and them may be bridged. Terence
Hi, nice to meet you !
Nice to meet you Margaret (I just found you on Bakers Daughter Writes). I’m working on a novel, living in Hoboken, so you may hear more from me. ;-) Glad to know you.
Hi, Melissa. Glad to know you, too. I just glanced at your blog, and will come back to it. Do you know the online community She Writes? (http://www.shewrites.com) I don’t use it as much as I mean to, but there’s a lot going on there.
[…] had lunch with an old friend from Berkeley, the amazing writer Margaret Diehl, who helped me put together the best writing group I've ever been part of. We've been out […]