For three years, fresh out of an undergrad program at Cornell University, I lived in New York City and fell in love with all of it— the energy, the crowds, the languages, the foods, the museums, the art venues, the pockets of greenspace, the latticework of sidewalk that I walked and walked, a latticework I walk still.
After seven years away at two graduate creative writing programs—University of Southern Mississippi, University of Missouri—I got to move back to the city, but this time as part of a family of three (and then four) humans, plus accompanying pups. We’ve called New York City home for seventeen years now, and though we live in Park Slope, Brooklyn, we can often be found in other boroughs.
And, so, New York City for me is layered with personal landmarks, often stacked one atop another, from different periods of my life.
On the corner of Broadway and Bleecker, in a shop three steps down from street-level—home, over the years, to a jewelry collective, a wine shop, a lamp emporium—there was, in my early-twenties, a futon store, where I made my first “adult” furniture purchase, a navy-blue model that would serve as bed and sofa for three years; on that same corner, in my late-thirties, mind racing with work I needed to do, my four-year-old son, whose hand I was holding, waiting for the light—we were on the way to preschool—pointed with awe at three helium balloons tangled in electrical wires, and it was enough to shake me into the moment. On that corner I think of futons, escaped balloons, and my baby’s hand in mine.
On the southern end of Central Park, there’s a string of benches where I sat in my mid-twenties, tending to a blister, with my then-boyfriend, now-husband on a visit to the city; three years ago, in that same string of benches, my fourteen-year-old daughter received the high school acceptance email she was hoping for. When I pass those benches, I think a little about the bad shoe choices of my youth, but mostly I remember good news lighting up the face of a beloved.
One final example: My favorite community garden in the city, the Liz Christy at Houston and Bowery, is where I breathlessly finished reading Love in the Time of Cholera in my early-twenties, where I got engaged in my late-twenties, where I nursed babies and changed diapers in my thirties, and where, deep into my forties, usually on the way into Whole Foods across the street, I always look up to admire the shaggy weeping willow that’s lived there all along.
My New York City, my chosen home, is terraced with specifics, my own personal repository. When I move through it—on foot, on the subway, in the occasional cab—I get glimpses of my past, flickers of memories. I’m often caught off guard by the flush of pleasure.
My novel, Unlimited Ride, told in short, humorous sections about parenting, city living, the literary life, and a woman’s determination to write a novel on her long commutes, is also a love letter to New York City. I wrote it with a tight focus on our subway, humming along beneath us day and night.
Other things to know about me:
I’m a Clinical Associate Professor in NYU’s Liberal Studies Program, where I teach writing classes, sometimes themed on food, as well as upper-level undergrad classes. In 2017–2018, I taught at NYU’s Florence, Italy campus. I’ve published short stories and essays in literary magazines, such as New Letters, Elm Leaves Journal, The Missouri Review, and The Minnesota Review; several have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes. My husband is the fiction writer Nathan Oates. We have two brilliant kids—Sylvie and Baxter—and two charming pups—Nougatine, a fourteen-year-old Golden Retriever mix, who relocated with us to Italy and made friends at food stalls all around the Sant’Ambrogio Market, and Elaine, a six-month-old Cardigan Welsh Corgi, who’s making a name for herself in Park Slope. I grew up outside Richmond, Virginia.
I’m thrilled to be part of the Regal House Publishing family.
Regal House Publishing is proud to bring you Amy Day Wilkinson’s Unlimited Ride in 2027.
