When we heard that Fay Jacobs was one step away from having her first book published we wanted to know all about it. So here goes:

MM: Fay, let me start by saying I Googled you. Wow. After ten pages I got tired of reading.

I learned you are head of Fay J Productions, write a regular column for Letters from CAMP Rehoboth, are Executive Vice President of Delaware Stonewall Democrats, Executive Director of Rehoboth Beach Main Street, and in 1998 won the Vice Versa Award for one of your Letters columns. And I thought people came to the beach to relax.

FJ: I thought so too, but I’m busier now than I’ve ever been.

MM: Your number one focus right now must be on your upcoming book. What’s it called and when is it due out?

FJ: It’s a collection of some of my columns from 1995-2003, called, As I Lay Frying: A Rehoboth Beach Memoir (with absolutely no apologies to William Faulkner!). Publication is May 22 and CAMP is putting together a publication day book signing. It’s very exciting but it’s been difficult to choose what goes in a book like this. I wanted to make sure that people who’ve never read the columns would get a sense of the whole tale I told through the years, but also a sense of current events along the way. Re-reading, I was amazed at the things that have happened in this country and in Rehoboth since I’ve been writing. I hope people who haven’t read the columns will find them interesting.

MM: As if they wouldn’t! Anything else about the book, Fay?

FJ: It’s being published by A & M books, owned by Anyda Marchant and Muriel Crawford. It’s such an honor for me. Anyda and Muriel are pioneers in the lesbian literature field. They incorporated Naiad Press, and we need to understand how brave and how adventuresome that was. So I’m thrilled to be published by them. It’ll be interesting to see where it goes. If we make money we hope to share it with the CAMP Community Center. That’s one of the reasons I’m doing this.

MM: We’d like to know more about your writing. Obviously, it’s a big part of your life. When did you first start writing?

FJ: In eighth grade, and by the time I got to high school I was touching on these first person kinds of columns—for school newspapers. When I didn’t get a whole lot of feedback, I just stopped doing it. Eventually I got into journalism and spent thirty years writing feature stories because I love to write about people. I had been writing in D.C.—every once in a while I wrote first person columns and the Blade published them. So, I had been doing it but only when something struck me as particularly amusing or if something made me particularly mad. Then, when I came down here Steve gave me an opportunity to write these kinds of columns on a regular basis.

MM: How’d that come about?

FJ: We had friends with condos and homes here in Rehoboth, but we couldn’t buy a condo because we had a boat. In 1995, Bonnie and I came here on our boat just to spend part of the summer at the marina in Dewey. One day we went into a hamburger place in Dewey that’s not there anymore. There was some guy behind the counter who owned the place and he was saying really homophobic things, and talking to the waitresses as if they were dirt. Saying, "Oh we went over to Rehoboth the other night, buncha fairies up there and fags." He was just awful. I wrote a letter to the editor of Letters about the despicable place. Steve liked the letter, knew I was a writer and asked me if I wanted to write anything else for Letters. That’s how it started.

MM: Do you have what you might call a particular writing style?

FJ: I just tell stories that I think people will relate to even though they’re my stories.

MM: Can you take a stab at describing your writing process?

FJ: Some times an idea comes into my head and I can sit down and write a column in forty minutes. Other times I want to write about a particular subject, so I research it and I worry it to death. And, it can take days and days. It seems that the ones I write in fifteen minutes are often the best. They just seem to come out.

MM: Of all your columns, are there any that stand out in your mind?

FJ: The one I’ve had the most feedback on, is when Bonnie was sick and I was describing what gay people need to do to protect themselves when it comes to legal and medical things. That gave me great pleasure because I heard from so many people who said, "The afternoon I read that I went to the lawyer and made sure I was protected." So that will always be an important one to me. A favorite was the one I wrote about doing cat rescue and driving cats across the state line into New Jersey to go to a no-kill shelter. It was a bizarre experience.

MM: I’m really sorry I missed that one.

FJ: Well, you’ll get a chance to read it in the book.

MM: We all love all of your columns, but have any of them generated any negative reactions?

FJ: Yes, but I try to avoid that! First, Bonnie has veto power. I try not to write anything to hurt anyone’s feelings. However, I inadvertently stuck my big, fat foot in my mouth when I negatively reviewed the first episode of Queer As Folk. It took three years until the premiere of The L Word where I finally "got it." So, I was guilty, as charged.

MM: What would you say is your most memorable accomplishment?

FJ: It’s hard to say. Maybe being able to do what I want to do in my life and do it honestly, by bringing all parts of my life together. For many years I had a successful career and then I had my home life. They rarely met, and, at times, I felt very schizophrenic. When I came to Rehoboth I said I’d never be in the closet again.

MM: Is there anything you’d like to change about yourself?

FJ: Well, sure. Lots. Certainly I want to lose thirty pounds, but that’s not the most important thing. I want to have a little more, well a lot more patience. I’m impatient with social change, and sometimes I’m impatient with people. I would really like to change that. I did change some of that when I changed the pace of my life by moving here. Even as busy as I am, there’s lots more time to enjoy yourself when you don’t have a long commute.

MM: If you could change anything in the past, what would it be?

FJ: (without a second’s hesitation) Oh my God! The election of George W. Bush.

MM: Would you like to tell us the best thing that ever happened to you?

FJ: Meeting Bonnie. Definitely the best thing that ever happened to me.

MM: And the worst?

FJ: When she got sick a couple of years ago. We went through a really rough time. And, also, I lost my mother at a young age, and that probably was the very worst. (Fay was twenty years old.)

MM: I have to say this: there are a lot of people out there who would like to know about the accordion-playing ex husband.

FJ: (Roaring with laughter). Well, okay, so I made a mistake! All my friends were married, and I didn’t know there were options. I met him in college. I figured, Oh God, I might as well do it. It lasted six years—it wasn’t all bad. Well, okay, the accordion music was all bad.

MM: How did you and Bonnie meet?

FJ: We met in 1982 at a dance at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. We spent an evening talking, and we’ve been together pretty much ever since.

MM: Since you’ve been together twenty-two years, things must be okay. (laughter) I know you two tied the knot in Canada last August. Is there anything different now that you’re married, and do you think it’s going to last?

FJ: It’s definitely going to last! Day to day there’s nothing different, but it’s a really nice affirmation.

MM: What do you love about Bonnie the most?

FJ: She’s very adventuresome. We’re opposites. She’s pushed me to be more that way.

MM: And, you get the most annoyed with her when she...?

FJ: Hmm. Let’s see. Oh I don’t know. (Oh come on Fay!) Okay, when she leaves her tools everywhere.

MM: Thanks for taking your time to talk to me, but there’s one last question that I think a lot of us out here are dying to ask. You ready? Fay, what turns you on? And don’t give me some cornball answer like "world peace!"

FJ: (Stunned silence followed by much laughing) Oooh boy! (long pause) I’m speechless, I’m actually speechless, and this rarely happens.

MM: Oh come on Fay!

FJ: (Finally and still laughing) Aside from Bonnie? JENNIFER BEALS!!