Whitefood

Pamela Gay is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) award in creative nonfiction and an Independent e-Book Award for her memoir Homecoming, which combined text, image, and sound. Her writing has been published in Iowa Review, Brevity, Midway Journal, Southeast Review, Monkeybicycle, Grey Sparrow, Vestal Review, and other literary magazines. I’m So Glad You’re Here (She Writes Press) was featured in PARADE magazine as one of the best memoirs in 2020 and also received both Best Book and Independent Press awards. Gay is professor emerita of English at Binghamton University, State University of New York, where she taught courses in flash fiction and memoir.

Pamela Gay's “Whitefood” is, in her own words, "based on a little story I was told when in residency at the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, Ithaca, NY. I fictionalized from what I heard. I liked the idea of this concert pianist who stopped playing piano after an accident and then one day invited friends over and she played for them. Previously she had told them that she only ate white food and so what to do for her at her home recital? I imagined them preparing white food and her humor ('Chicken Breasts' song) and laughter alas and everything white but that hint of color in her cheeks. She was on her way to a renewal. I still love this story. It was readily accepted when I sent it to the Iowa Review and I’m so glad." -- R. D. Snyder, in correspondence with the author 7/12/2021