Captivated by Love

Our Writers Reveal Their Favorite Love Story

Valentine’s Day has come and gone but we at Project Write Now believe the whole month of February should embrace the theme of love. Love has the power to inspire, heal, and bring people together, and it’s a feeling worth celebrating. We <heart> love.

This month, we asked our writers to share their favorite stories about love. Whether it’s their own romance or a favorite TV series or book, we asked them to share the love stories that captivate them. Here are their responses …

Wendy Goodman, who is currently enrolled in Extraordinary Ordinary Stories, said:

I thought I was a bottomless pit of need. I thought I was endlessly starved for love. I just didn’t know the truth of my being, of your being. I didn’t understand that … I am love. That all that I long for … I am. It’s not lack. It’s not scarcity. It’s infinite yearning. Equal parts desire and passion. It aches. It opens. It extends. It expands. It’s love wanting more love. I am love wanting more love. Because why wouldn’t love want more love? I’m not a bottomless pit of need. I’m an eternal well of love.

Liz Jannuzzi, our operations and communications manager as well as a current writer in book inc’s Book Revision Lab, said:

When discussing our origin story, my husband Chris likes to say he got drunk at a work holiday party and woke up in Jersey with a wife, a house, and three kids. But the real meet-cute was a couple of months before that at a work conference in Indianapolis. I was working the College Board’s booth in the exhibit hall when Chris walked up waving a local paper. “Hey, there’s a haunted corn maze near here. I’ve got a rental car. Let’s go after work.” I was hesitant. Couldn’t we just get drunk at the hotel bar? But I didn’t want to sit by myself in my hotel room so I agreed. We laughed so hard in that maze. And then Chris took us to a riverboat casino. While he rolled the dice at the craps table, I won a couple hundred on a slot machine. On the way home, “Build Me Up Buttercup” came on the radio and we all belted it out like old friends on a road trip. I was officially smitten and from that point on I begged my boss to send me on any work trip that I knew Chris was attending. There was Vegas where we went on a tour of the Hoover Dam, Austin where we saw the Yellow Submarine movie in a classic theater, and Orlando where we accidentally sunk a swan boat (See photo above.) Twenty-plus years later he is still dragging me and now our three kids on adventures. “Let’s rent SiRi bikes!” “Let’s go to this concert at this venue in this city!” I’m always hesitant but always have a good time. 

Elyse Kehoe, a longtime member of our Memoir Intensive class, said: 

At our daughter’s wedding, my octogenarian parents were the last couple standing for the dance when the DJ said, “Sit down if you’ve been married less than fifty years.” He held the microphone under my mother’s chin and asked, “What advice can you give the newlyweds?” The family held its collective breath and prayed that the evil dementia that plagued my mother wouldn’t answer. She smiled and said, “Never put your heads on your pillows angry with each other.” I would add “Say I love you.” It has worked for my husband and me. Now we have been married fifty years.

Jenny Morelli, a writer currently enrolled in book inc’s Book Revision Lab, wrote: 

We sit across our new granite table, mugs in our hands. I’m brought back to the beginning, our first date at Denny’s. Two o’clock in the morning. We were giddy, lovestruck, confident; filched mugs as prized mementos of a hopeful forever. I’m brought back to the night on top of the Disney’s world. Across a glass table, giddy, lovestruck, confident. Fireworks our backdrop. A ring on my finger. Song in my heart. Now, across our granite counter, still the kids we once were, we’re giddy, lovestruck, confident in the us we always knew we’d become. Denny’s mugs in our hands.

Lou Storey, a current a Poetry Intensive student, wrote:  

1988, before computers and swiping left or right, my solution to loneliness was to employ a gay matchmaker, my very own alternate lifestyle Dolly Levi. More like job interviews than dating, I grilled each prospective life mate with a series of questions. Meeting Steve, I skipped the quiz—love defies multiple choice. I had justifiable fears about marriage. Divorce is an epidemic in my family, unions lasting seven years or less. But my 35-year marriage to Steve seems immune. My sister, speculating on this mysteriously happy relationship says, “That whole gay thing must be the reason.” My response, “Yes, absolutely.”

Elisheva Trenk, a memoirist currently enrolled in book inc’s Book Revision Lab, said: 

Lines of people exited the red brick synagogue where my mother’s funeral had just been held. As my mom’s only daughter, I received hugs and sympathy from friends and family as I entered the procession to the far-off cemetery where I would say my final, devastating goodbye. I felt a hand on my shoulder and saw my friend, my soul sister, whose tear-stained face reflected my own. “I’m coming, too,” Fay said. “You don’t have to say a word to me, but if you need me, I’ll be right here.” How did she know that simply being there meant everything?