How Anais Nin Changed My Life and Love

I spent most of my twenties entwined with the life of Anais Nin. I had developed a craving for a thin novel with a gestural line drawing on the cover during my daily visits to a little off campus bookstore when I was in my last semester before graduation. I finally took possesion of Children of the Albatross the day finals were over. I ran to the little bookstore on Guadalupe Avenue, threw all my change on the counter, and walked out with my new best friend. I immediately began my transition from a "good girl" into a woman of substance. I conducted a long, vicarious, totally mental relationship with Anais Nin and felt myself to sip absinthe in Paris with Antonin Artaud, D.H. Lawrence, Henry and June Miller.

As I transitioned into life in New York City, I patterned my activities and interactions on the events of the ongoing characters in her short novels of Cities of the Interior. From twenty five into my thirties, I woke up, drank coffee, rode the subway, ate lunch and dinner and traveled abroad with volume after volume of The Diary of Anaise Nin.

I have to say, this memoire is incomplete. I need to scour my journals of my early days as an adult when I used to sit in cafés writing to myself, wondering what Anais would have thought about what I was thinking. Please return as I add more and more about this author who helped to form me.

Selected works:

• D.H. LAWRENCE. AN UNPROFESSIONAL STUDY, 1932
• HOUSE OF INCEST, 1936
• ed.: TWICE A YEAR, 1938
• WINTER OF ARTIFICE 1939
• UNDER A GLASS BELL, 1944
• LADDERS TO FIRE, 1946 (Cities of the Interior series) - Portaat tuleen
• ON WRITING, 1947
• CHILDREN OF THE ALBATROSS, 1947 (Cities of the Interior series)
• THE FOUR-CHAMBERED HEART, 1950 (Cities of the Interior series)
• SPY IN THE HOUSE OF LOVE, 1954 (Cities of the Interior series) - Vakoilija rakkauden talossa (suom. Pentti Saarikoski)
• SOLAR BARQUE, 1958 (Cities of the Interior series)
• CITIES OF THE INTERIOR, 1959
• SEDUCTION OF THE MINOTAUR, 1961
• COLLAGES, 1964 - Kuuaurinkojuhla
• THE DIARY OF ANAÏS NIN, VOLUME 1, 1931-1934, 1966
• THE DIARY OF ANAÏS NIN, VOLUME 2, 1934-1939, 1967
• NOVEL OF THE FUTURE, 1968
• THE DIARY OF ANAÏS NIN, VOLUME 3, 1939-1944, 1969
• THE DIARY OF ANAÏS NIN, VOLUME 4, 1944-1947, 1971
• A WOMAN SPEAKS: THE LECTURES, SEMINARS, AND INTERVIEWS OF ANAÏS NIN, 1975
• THE DIARY OF ANAÏS NIN, VOLUME 5, 1947-1955, 1974
• IN FAVOUR OF THE SENSITIVE MAN, 1976
• WASTE OF TIMELESSNESS, 1977
• DELTA OF VENUS: EROTICA, 1977 - Erotica
• THE DIARY OF ANAÏS NIN, VOLUME 6, 1955-1966, 1977
• LINOTTE: THE EARLY DIARY OF ANAÏS NIN 1914-1920, 1978
• THE LITTLE BIRDS: EROTICA, 1979 - Pikkulinnut
• THE DIARY OF ANAÏS NIN, VOLUME 7, 1966-1974, 1981
• THE EARLY DIARY OF ANAÏS NIN: VOLUME TWO, 1920-1923, 1982
• A LITERARY PASSION, 1987 (with Henry Miller)
• INCEST: FROM "A JOURNAL OF LOVE": THE UNEXPURGED DIARY OF ANAïs NIN, 1932-1934, 1992
• FIRE : FROM "A JOURNAL OF LOVE": THE UNEXPURGATED DIARY OF ANAIS NIN, 1934-1937, 1995
• ARROWS OF LONGING: THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN ANAIS NIN AND FELIX POOLAK 1952-1976, 1998