interview by Jess McCuan

VERVE was thrilled to land an interview with Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and best-selling author Anna Quindlen, the keynote speaker at this year’s Power of the Purse luncheon. Held at Asheville’s Grove Park Inn in mid-June, the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina’s perennially popular fundraiser set a new record this year, with nearly 800 people in attendance. The foundation’s Women for Women giving circle announced $264,000 in grants for local women’s programs at the YWCA of Asheville, Mountain BizWorks, Manna FoodBank and others.

So what’s on Anna’s mind these days? When we sat down with her in June, she was disturbed by several issues in the news, including a shooting at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., and the shuttering of slain abortion doctor George Tiller’s Kansas clinic. Quindlen, who penned Newsweek’s “The Last Word” column every other week for nine years and just gave up the gig in May, says that, in general, she’s worried about the quality of speech in this country. “Words matter,” she says. “I think we’ve all lost sight of intelligent, judicious speech. What seems to hold sway now is the pointed, not necessarily accurate or nuanced riposte. I think that’s really unfortunate.”

Do you Twitter? No.

Why not? I asked my oldest son if I should Twitter, and he said, “Mom, only if you want to be more accessible to people.” The truth is, I prefer to be slightly less accessible to people. One of the reasons I don’t do talk TV or appear on Sunday morning shows is because I’m first and foremost a writer, and I want to be judged by my words in print—words that I work on pretty hard—not words that I came up with on a moment’s notice in what frequently seems to me like haiku for the dopey.

Nobody needs to know that I just bought a latte! How does this advance human understanding? So no, I don’t, and I don’t anticipate ever doing it. I promised my children several years ago that I would never go on Facebook. I never have, and neither has their father. There’s enough of me out there to do the job.

When you left Newsweek, you seemed to imply that you were… Old?

Ha! No. You said you were clearing the way for a new generation of writers and commentators. Who are those people? Who are the new voices that will take over your role? I’m not sure, and actually, I think that’s the best part of the deal. I’ve got to assume that there are people out there who aren’t well known who are writing for Slate or Salon or VERVE or some other small- to mid-sized daily around the country. They will emerge, and they’ll be more representative of America in the 21st century—they’ll be Latina or female or gay or first-generation immigrants. I don’t really know who those people are at this point. Frankly, when I first started writing columns, I was a New York Times reporter, but I wasn’t anything like a household name. One of the most exciting parts about building an opinion class is building it from the ground up with people who come out of nowhere.

You argue often against consumer culture, shopping and materialism, and while I personally agree with some of your views, I did read a thoughtful column a while ago that said this: Americans who have lost touch with the rhythms of agricultural life use shopping to give them a deep sense of renewal. Do you think shopping can do that? Not the way we do it now. Look, I love to buy stuff. And I like to buy big stuff. In another life, I think I was a real estate agent or a house flipper. I love houses so much. But I love houses as homes. In other words, I cleave deeply. I think that gives you a sense of renewal. But too much of what we’ve gotten invested in now is not only junk but it’s junk we can’t afford.
If you look at the average credit card debt of Americans, it’s like the Sword of Damocles hanging over your head 24/7. I don’t think it gives you that sense of renewal. I think shopping for real stuff does that—stuff that’s of good quality, stuff that you know you’re going to have for a long time. You get that sometimes talking to someone. They say, “I bought this and I spent too much, but I’ve been wearing it nonstop for 15 years.” But so much of our shopping is just junk shopping.

What’s an example of junk? Endless T-shirts. The shoe thing. I mean, you look in your closet and you’re kind of ashamed. You think: I don’t have time to wear all this stuff. If I got dressed up every day for the next year, which is a horrible thought for me, I still probably wouldn’t wear all of this stuff.

Do you have any guilty-pleasure purchases? All kinds of clothes. My best friend and I both have a real shopping problem. We’ve gotten around it now—we both belong to this sample-sale online site called gilt.com. I said to her the other day: “You know what I keep doing on gilt? I put an Oscar de la Renta jacket in my cart and then I don’t close the deal.” And she’s like, “Oh my god—so do I! It’s like the thing where they say you should chew pizza and then spit it out.” And I said, “Okay, that’s just sick.” What would my husband say? Quilts, cashmere throws for the furniture. He’s like—there are throws everywhere. No one ever uses throws! They just hang out on your couch.