Whether you’re a native or a newcomer, New York City is ever a mystery, too big to fully fathom even in a lifetime, and central to countless myths and fables of Americana. It is the proverbial city that never sleeps: the Big Apple. A place where people lose themselves as often as they find themselves, it is born anew every day out of relentless and perpetual flux.

We’ve all heard the story of the hayseed come lately to the Big City with dreams of having the genius of its urbane favor bestowed upon them, sparking an inner odyssey in which they become other than themselves for a time, only to find truth proper in their origins. Is this just fable? How exactly is it that a city can inspire metamorphosis? Or: what is it about a city that can transform its people? Why did I tell myself that I had to come to here to “be” a writer – why is Chicago any different? Is there something in the water, some sacred geometry in the NYC skyline at night, that has roused the muse in so many? Or is this city just what happens when 8 million ambitious groupthinkers are living on a pile of money?

This is my year of transition, of major flux, in which I either start the Next Great American Novel or wind up back in Chicago (or better yet, Detroit). Over the next year I’ll be blogging about what it means to be a writer in the American Literary Mecca, or what it means to be a writer in a city full of writers. What it might mean, if it means anything at all, to put pen to paper in the same borough, cafe, bar or alley as Joseph Mitchell or Phillip Roth, as Hubert Selby Jr, Paul Auster, or Sylvia Plath. I’ll also be ranting about life as a writer, posting notices and photos from literary events past and future, thoughts on what I’m reading, etc.