a happy confluence...

of events... The July-August 2021 issue of Harvard Magazine is the last in which retiring Senior Editor Jean Martin's name appears on the masthead. I met Jean in the summer of 2012, when I pitched Irna Phillips, the founding mother of the American Soap Opera, as a subject for the feature Jean edited at Harvard: "Vita — A Brief Life of..." The confluence: July 1st also marks Irna's 120th birthday.

My research on Irna Phillips grew out of the critical observations about soap opera I began posting in 2006. When Guiding Light was cancelled in 2009, after a 57-year run on CBS (Irna created the radio show in 1937), I began researching her life for what I thought would be a documentary film. Two years later, I realized, reluctantly, that for many reasons, a documentary, at least in any meaningful sense of the word, was simply not possible.

So, I spent early 2012 selecting essays I had previously posted for the Kindle Single I hoped to release on October 17th (my mother's birthday): as the world stopped turning..., which chronicled the final 15 years of Irna's greatest creation, As the World Turns. I had written an epilogue, "the gift of sadness;" only the preface remained. It was then that I realized that Irna would make a perfect subject for "Vita..."

When I pitched Jean, she loved the idea, noting how Irna's life met both purposes behind "Vita...": "to introduce readers to a now-obscure figure who deserves to be better known, or present a well-known figure in a new light." There didn't seem to be any rush. Because I knew that what I planned to cover in the "Vita...," (limited to 900 words) would also be part of the much longer preface ("the iconoclastic world irna created..." clocked in at 3600 words), my plan was to finish the preface, release the ebook, then carefully piece together 900 words.

And it seemed like a workable plan until Jean called and said a piece had fallen through and could I have a manuscript ready for the January-February 2013 issue, a deadline made even tighter by an early Thanksgiving that year.

So, I found myself writing the two pieces simultaneously, something I do not recommend. And something I never would have been able to do without Jean's expertise, generosity, not to mention, patience. The process was sometimes surreal. I had gotten the initial draft down to 1000 or so words. But since I was also working on the longer piece, Jean wanted to see that draft, as well. Her revision came back at 1300 words. Back and forth we went. But, after two months, 15 email exchanges, several phone calls, and one in-person meeting, "Irna Phillips: Brief live of soap opera's single mother." was published as scheduled.

As for the "the iconoclastic world irna created...": it was a long gestation followed by a protracted labor and delivery, but I did indeed release as the world stopped turning... on October 17th, 2012.