Gregory Maguire
The author of Wicked has a pretty moving postbag
ANDY NEWMAN
Do you have any personal mementos on your desk?
A small wooden oval box with a photo of Emily Dickinson decoupaged onto the lid, and ornamented in mustard and black paint. Inside are a few small pine cones and dried leaves gathered from the Homestead, Dickinson’s Amherst, Massachusetts, recluse. It was painted by Lynn Caponera as a present for Maurice Sendak following an excursion from Sendak’s studio in Connecticut to Massachusetts. When Sendak died – he was a dear friend – Lynn [his housekeeper] gave me this token she’d made for him. It had sat upon his desk from 1999 until he died in 2012. It has sat on my desk since.