The deadline for the 2008 Amanda Davis Highwire Fiction Award, a $2,500 grant given to a woman writer of 32 years or younger, is this Thursday, May 15. For more information, click here. - - - -

Dear readers, On the afternoon of Friday, March 14, a plane carrying Amanda Davis and her parents crashed into a mountain in North Carolina. There were no survivors. Amanda Davis was one of the funniest, most self-effacing, chutzpah-charged, and big-hearted human beings anyone could ever hope to encounter. To meet her was always an historical event, one you would remember for the rest of your life. Amanda was essential. She was vital. She was a forceful and generous (and forcefully generous) presence. She was the magnetic core around which a lot of people swirled, and as such she was a facilitator of relationships and possibility of all sorts. Many of us were connected, through her, to a community that she created and maintained; she made life feel cozy, small, family-like, even for people who lived 3,000 miles apart. With her energetic pragmatism, she commanded the chaotic, nonsensical world to work better, and it did, or at least it seemed to, when she was around. We all know people who possess both a whip-smart wit and a penchant for the ridiculously sentimental (in the most sappy, excellent, KNOWING way), but no one embodied these soft and edgy extremes like Amanda. Does 'vicious sweetheart' make sense? Her friends were her cubs. She protected them, she grubbed food for them, she cuffed them on the head when they got too whiney or pathetic. She was mother bear, psychoanalyst, nurse, real estate agent, plumber, computer technician, consumer advocate, expert on everything from used truck parts to biscuit recipes. The girl had opinions. Well-informed, researched, insightful opinions. She had advice for you, always, about whatever worried or confused you. Don't know what kind of laptop to buy? Call Amanda. Bewildered by the ins and outs of refinancing your mortgage? Call Amanda. Need advice about your love life, your crappy short story, your sick cat, what color to paint your bathroom? Call Amanda. Have a tiny stupid problem that no one in their right mind has the time to care about? Amanda has the time (but hold on — she'll have to get rid of that person on the other line, first). Call Amanda. So we who knew her personally will be robbed of HER (don't get me started on what she's been robbed of). Those who didn't know her personally, those who knew her only (or additionally) through her writing, are robbed of the books she'd yet to write. Amanda was an extremely gifted writer, one just managing to wrestle her many talents into a honed, inimitable voice. Her first book, Circling the Drain, was published by William Morrow in 1999, and was one of the more daring examples of short fiction in the last ten years. Her work floated somewhere between poetry and prose, untethered by narrative, but always concerned with matters of the heart. Her story, "Fat Ladies Floated in the Sky Like Balloons," was published in McSweeney's second issue, and exemplified everything they were looking for: it was experimental but lyrical, brave but full of soul. She was, as many have said, "the real thing." This was a year of change for Amanda; she'd moved to California and she was HAPPY, really happy. She was awarded an amazing teaching position at Mills College in Oakland, and loved her work there. She was a WRITER who loved to TEACH WRITING (for those who don't know: this is a rarity), because she was so damned invested in other people's possibilities. She lived in a wonderful house on campus, shrouded by trees and featuring a hammock and a barbecue, both of which she put to good use. And her second book and first novel, Wonder When You'll Miss Me, had just hit the bookstores last week. Her parents used their vacation time to fly their daughter around on her book tour in her father's small plane (evidently, the Davis clan are genetically bred for encouragement and outlandish gestures of generous support). Her family was en route to a reading when the accident occurred. She and her parents are survived by her younger sister Joanna and her younger brother Adam. This space will serve, for this week and maybe beyond, as a forum for people who knew and loved Amanda. As those who have been sharing stories about her these past few days have learned, Amanda is managing, STILL, to take charge of this situation in a very familiar way — a story starring her starts, and smiles reluctantly emerge, and suddenly we can see her goofing around and trying to make us laugh, even as we're missing her so damned hard. We picture her banging her cell phone, cursing out the crappy reception she's getting and her new plan and vowing to switch services AGAIN. And here's just one of the many tragedies resulting from this — the one-way manner in which we're going to have to talk to her from now on, SHE of the boundless advice and wise words, since she can't call us anymore from where she is. But we know she'd want to hear from us. If you knew Amanda and would like to post something, please send it to Lee Epstein at lepstein@mcsweeneys.net. New postings will be added to the top as they come in. — Heidi Julavits - - - - We are trying to link to as many places as possible where you can see Amanda's work. We published this story in our second issue: "Fat Ladies Floated in the Sky Like Balloons." Here is another story, titled "Louisiana Loses Its Cricket Hum." Here is an audio version of "Faith, or Tips for the Successful Young Lady." - - - - Amanda Davis loved the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. She thought everyone should go. She made everyone go. Amanda was editor and writer of The Crumb, Bread Loaf's daily newsletter, in the summers of 1998 and 1999. Here's a link to The Crumb's archives: http://www.middlebury.edu/blwc/The_Crumb.html - - - - Amanda's friends and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference have set up a memorial scholarship fund in her name at Bread Loaf. Contributions to it can be sent directly to Noreen Cargill, c/o Amanda Davis Memorial Scholarship Fund, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT 05753. - - - - The Wesleyan Writers Conference has established a fund in memory of Amanda, who won the Conference's Teaching Fellowship in Fiction in 2000. - - - - I knew Mandy for a few brief, shining moments in junior & senior high school here in Durham. I remember working with her on several English and literary projects. I remember her laugh, those brilliant clothes, and her wonderful curly hair. She invited me to her house on many occasions, and reading your memories brought back vivid flashbacks of her and her amazing room. One night, we stayed up late watching Penn & Teller and we thought they were the absolute coolest. The next day I went with her to temple, and I was the proverbial fish out of water. However, she made me feel that I belonged, and I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about her faith. My mother, Beverly, and I were honored to attend her bat mitzvah. I admired her dedication and unique flair in everything she did — she literally dove into dangerous waters and loved it. I shared with Mandy the interesting experience of being a Durham Debutante. I remember her slight moment of hesitation before she accepted the invitation to participate in that distinctly non-Jewish social gala. I remember her gown for the ball. While many of us wore similar "Southern Belle" attire, she displayed her creative spirit as only Mandy Davis could. I remember some kids thought she was strange, but I thought she was a brilliant kaleidoscope in the sometimes grey, depressing, and angst-filled world of high school. I just found out about Mandy's death via e-mail from another high school alum who is living and working overseas. Sadly, I lost touch with Mandy after high school. Her accomplishments were so great and I am so proud of her. Here I am, almost fifteen years after last seeing her, shocked and saddened that her unique flame was extinguished so early in life. I will always remember Mandy and her family with great affection and love. My life was enriched by knowing her for those brief moments in time. I will forever treasure her gift of poignant and witty poetry she left as a remembrance in my many yearbooks. — Jennifer Barker - - - - How can I write about Amanda? What can one say that has not already been said? I love everything that has been said: the sweetness, the love, the praise — every little anecdote and description. But I also hate it. I don't want to hear it… I don't want it to be said, I don't want it to need to be said. Like Dylan Thomas, I rage, rage against the dying of the light. My heart hangs low, half-mast. And yet, I want to write about Amanda, be it ever so hard. Hard because even now, I still can't accept it. Hard because even now I am incapable of thinking about, talking about, Amanda in the past tense — she is so in-tense. How can one say, "was"? That's not Amanda. As I read all the beautiful, touching, heart-wrenching tributes, and as I recall the deeply touching memorial statements, I realize how different my perspective is. Naturally, as Mother of "The Boy," I see and know a rather different Amanda. Everyone talks about her heart, her warmth. Of course. She radiated aliveness, intelligence, charisma — that marvelous curiosity, that marvelous desire to do, to know, to succeed, to advise, to share. But to me — the older generation — she is not the all-advising, counseling den-mother. She is daughter too, questioning, learning, searching. The ancient soul of a child. I don't see funky, glittery attire as characteristic of lovely Amanda. Yes, I know about the shoe fetish. But that is very much at home in our family. (We call it a feet-ish.) And yes, she glittered… yes, she glowed. But that's Amanda — not glitzy garb, not glittery make-up. It came from within. For me, though, it was more about hats than shoes. There was the time that Amanda, Hope, two-month-old Sophie, and I had a magical girl's day out in Atlanta. First shoes, when I had the great pleasure of buying shoes for Amanda. (And no one has mentioned how extremely elegant Amanda's feet were.) Then a little jaunt to Neiman Marcus. The perfect milieu. We plunged in. Tried every lipstick, every perfume, every blush, eye shadow, cream, lotion, potion. But then there were hats. It happened to be Kentucky Derby time, and Neiman was replete with over-the-top, serious, glamorous, extravagant, expansive, outrageously expensive hats. Amanda sprinted to them, Hope in hot pursuit, using Sophie's stroller as a jogging-cart. I was astonished. It seemed so utterly un-Amanda-ish. Nothing like her look or style. Unhesitatingly, though, she seized one of the creations and put it on. She looked amazing. Sargent, Gainsborough, Portrait of a Lady. I gasped, I admired. Effusive compliments. Amanda was sanguine. She knew. She knew that she looked beautiful, just as she had known that she would. "I was born in the wrong century," she said. She knew. And Anthony knew, too. He had a hat made for her. Precisely the right hat. No funky, zany cap. A regal, graceful creation. And when she wore it for Sophie's baby-naming, she made a grand entry, descending the stairs like a queen, with ease and grace. This is Amanda as I see her. Amanda — full of grace, loving and giving. Amanda — alive with intellect, interest. Amanda — radiating from within. If I could write an epitaph for Amanda, it would be "She walks in brightness, like the light…" — June Schneider - - - - I first met Mandy at Wesleyan, where our circle of friends overlapped but we ourselves never became very close. Mandy was such a force of nature, with tremendous presence and strength of character. At a time when I was constantly shedding personas and adopting new ones in an attempt to discover who I was, I stood in awe of her, someone whose compass never wavered. As chance would have it, when I moved to New York after graduation, Mandy was ensconced in an apartment around the corner. We ran into each other at the grocery store, and became close friends. It was Mandy above and beyond anyone else who persuaded me to brave the subway, dark parties down strange alleys in the meat-packing district, and the crowded aisles of Zabar's for what she swore was the best coffee. Although we had lived there for the same period of time, she already seemed to know everything there was to know about the city, and to have made the acquaintance of a staggering number of people. My favorite memory of Mandy is the night that she, Jason Lowi, and I hung out in her apartment watching British claymation videos. Mandy had covered her ceiling with glow in the dark stars, and after the video ended we turned out the lights and stared up at the ceiling and talked for hours about where we'd been and where we hoped we were going. It was one of those magical conversations that just don't seem to happen much after college, where you talk for hours about everything and nothing. I wish I'd gotten to know her again out here; I'd only seen her twice: once at a movie, and once at a party where we said hi but didn't stop to talk. And yet in spite of that, I feel a tremendous sense of loss, remembering the person who lent me some of her courage almost ten years ago. — Michelle Gagnon - - - - I met Amanda on what amounted to a blind date for ambitious young writers — she was applying to graduate schools, including the one where I was a student, and a friend of hers was living with a friend of mine, who wondered if I could help her get in. I had no pull, of course, but I said I'd be happy to meet her and read her stuff and give her some advice if that would be useful. She still went by Mandy then, and her e-mail name was poozie, so I had some private doubts. But those dissolved within a few minutes of my meeting her, at a Hungarian pastry shop across from St. John's Cathedral, and they vanished entirely after I read a few stories she'd brought. "These are really good," I told her. "Do you think so? They're not too weird?" She was embarassed, and more unsure of herself than I ever knew her to be again — she tugged at a lock of her bright red hair until it was straight — but it was also clear that she was pleased. "These should get you in anywhere," I said. She had told me she loved Alice Munro, so I expected something different from her stories, which turned out to be short and dreamlike and fabulous in all the senses of that word. There was one about two sisters in a treehouse, and others I wish I remembered more specifically, but what sticks with me even now is the confidence of her languid, charged language. She was still finding her way, she told me — but even then, it was HER way she was finding. This was a writer already comfortable in her own voice. Over the next few years, I saw a lot of Amanda in the on-again, off-again way that was typical of my New York friendships — and I gather, from reading the entries here, not at all typical of hers. I met her for coffee and drinks; I headed downtown to Two Boots for dinner; I went to her birthday party in the loft over the bag factory, where she showed off a cabinet she had bought just for her shoes. I was intimidated by her, and charmed, and always happy to be near her manic energy. We overlapped at Bread Loaf: My second year there, when I was on social staff, was her first year, when she won a writer's scholarship, and she proved herself a real sweetheart and a real friend when I humiliated myself by casually, inadvertently insulting a writer I admired. She didn't understand the self-destructive jocular impulse that had led me to tell him he was all washed up, but she listened to me, and she forgave me, and she made me feel better about my own stupidity. Even though we'd lost touch over the past few years — I got married, and grew frustrated at my lack of writing, and stopped answering her group e-mails — I still counted her as a friend, and I believed it was just a matter of time before I would see her again. Instead, I'll read and re-read her books, hearing her laughing voice and remembering the first time we met, when I flipped through her stories with baklava-sticky fingers and felt the thrill of discovering a writer who could accomplish huge things. — Gregory Cowles - - - - Amanda Davis was not your average professor. She wore cool funky shoes. She had tiny stars tattooed on the inside of her arms. She cracked jokes, and swore in class when she got excited. She instigated after-class excursions to a movie theater that serves pizza and beer. She marked papers in bright purple ink ("woo hoo!" she wrote in the margin of one). She brought bags of chocolate malt balls to class and told us they were the best chocolate malt balls ever. And they were. Amanda was fiercely protective of our writing. She believed in our possibility. She told us not to worry, that it would happen for us. Just work hard, go to Breadloaf, and it will all fall into place. Amanda made it look easy — in her tiny little glasses and wild curly hair. Most of us wanted to be like her. Some of us wanted to be her. Visiting Amanda during her office hours was an adventure — and not only because she was always doing six things at once. She would turn her attention to you, her intent eyes, and listen. Then, as you poured out whatever you had come to tell her, she would suddenly wave her arms around wildly in a spastic fit. Apparently the lights in Mills Hall run on a motion sensor and would turn off after a period of time with no movement. Amanda hated these lights. She had been caught in the dark one of her first days here. Now that she's gone it feels like the lights have gone out for good, and all the jumping and arm waving in the world will not be enough to turn them back on again. The third floor of Mills Hall is quiet this week. Her office doorstep awash with flowers. People have left small momentos — a map of New York, a burning memorial candle, a mango, a bottle of vanilla Coke. There is poster board tacked to the wall and markers to write with. In large swooping letters a message reads: Amanda, we are missing you, far too soon. — Tara Austen Weaver - - - - I'm a first year MFA in fiction at Mills College, Oakland, where Amanda was Associate Professor. I first met Amanda when I walked into her classroom last August for her Craft of Fiction class. I was immediately struck by her passion: the energy she brought to the room, enthusiasm she brought to the subject, and above all the empathy she had for her students. Amanda was extremely supportive and encouraging to me, not only as one of her students, but also as a fellow writer, and mother of two young children. After the birth of my second child, who was only three months when I started the MFA program last August, I struggled with whether or not to to return to college and pursue my hopes and dreams of being the best fiction writer I could be. After that first class with Amanda, and reading Annie Dillard's The Writing Life — which Amanda had assigned, describing it as a "gem" and her near-constant companion — my fears, anxiety, and guilt about returning to school were appeased, and I no longer saw writing as a dream, but as my destiny. In a paper on The Writing Life I quoted Dillard: "You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment," and added that I found this quote truly inspiring and liberating. Amanda wrote in the margin "I love this too." And later when I wrote that I love and live to write, Amanda again wrote in the margin, "Me too." The title of her novel, Wonder When You'll Miss Me, the flight motifs in her work — I'm thinking especially of the novel and the title story from her collection, Circling The Drain — in those first dark days seemed eerie, an uncanny foreshadowing, and yet now, knowing Amanda better through remembering and stretching the moments with her, re-seeing those tiny details: her pushing her curls behind her ears, the clink of her charm bracelet, the blue stars tattooed on her forearm, the "come-on" gesture she'd make with her hands and arms, and especially through re-reading her work, the articles written about her, her past interviews, and from this website, I now see the motifs in her work not as disturbing given her tragic death, but instead as themes that attest to the short but zesty life that she led, during which she SOARED. — Ethel C. McDonnell - - - - Reading the postings to this site, it's clear to me that Amanda was a big bundle of energy, sending sparks out in every direction, pulling people in. To me, she was less kinetic than potential energy, the ball about to roll down the hill but not quite there yet. We kept missing each other — I was at Wesleyan with her but didn't really know her; I saw her at parties but never had time to talk; she was supposed to come to tea but wasn't yet going to be home from her book tour. But this I remember about Amanda: she would not let me be afraid of her. So many of my friends are becoming or have become successful writers that sometimes I enter a gathering on the defensive, feeling like I came up the front stairs by mistake when I was supposed to use the tradesman's entrance. But Amanda would have none of that. From the second I met her again, after she moved out to California, she made it clear that we had to get to know each other. Anthony said at the reading on Saturday that growing up, Amanda was always afraid that somewhere, someone was doing something more fun than whatever Amanda was doing; maybe it was our shared inner outcast that made her think we might be friends. The potential of that friendship, which clearly would have changed my life forever (at the very least, I would have changed my cell phone provider and bought some new shoes), has made me miss her. I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like for those who really knew her well. — Kate Gordon - - - - (The following is a eulogy for Amanda delivered at Mills College memorial on April 20) She was talented and ambitious and demanding and humble. She was bossy and feisty and forgiving, irreverent and tactful and gentle. She knew how to hold a grudge and make fun of herself at the same time. She was wise and sometimes hid it behind the demeanor of an energetic teen. She was not a sap. She had a tongue sharp as a staple and could tack down anyone in a quick phrase. "So, what to tell you?" she once wrote to me. "Mostly nice people here. A few duds. One alarmingly confrontational obnoxious·man who has a habit of appearing out of the ether at full volume and who I try to avoid." One of her favorite words was "grrrrrr," pronounced with a small tight mouth, and she could use the verb "to suck" more flexibly, in more conjugations and contexts, than anyone I've ever heard. But then she'd say "enough snarkiness" or "that's just bad juju." And when she liked something, her word became "whoooohoooo," and any friend of hers was "good people," "fantastic," "wonderful," "awesome." Others close to her have lately called her a vibrant new voice in American fiction, a passionate and generous teacher, the Thomas Edison of friendship and the Queen of Silly. She was all these things. She was also the one who brought us the first word of how to call the White House and protest the war, of the Send Rice to Bush campaign, and about new threats to Roe v. Wade. She was a peacemaker at Mills and reached students no one else had managed to. She wrote long serious proposals about ways to work out budget problems or treat students more fairly, and then she sent around a quiz that started "How do you put a giraffe in the refrigerator?," your answers to which were supposed to identify your management style. She traveled with the circus in striped tights, a tutu and pink wig, standing on her hands. And when she finished she sat down and used those hands to put it all in a great book. She bopped down the halls, one hand sunk in her hair on top, her sleeves rolled up, ready to get down to work. She could pin you with a look across the room, just when you were trying to be serious, a quick sidelong stare, a little twitch of mouth, and there you'd be, grinning. She made you happy just to look at her, and then she'd tell you what to do. She'd give you anything if you needed it. She brought me lunch in my office, and cups of tea with honey, and one day the week before she died, when my eyes went suddenly blurry, she dropped whatever she had planned to do and just took care of me, surfing the web until she found the answer, then she ordered me off a prescription I'd been taking for years. She also ordered me to get a cell phone, and to tell off whoever was on my case, call up my agent and demand some love, and when we had too much to do, especially when we had too much to do, she demanded I go with her to some dumb chick-flick, or maybe get ourselves mojitos and go ice-skating. She lay around my rug in front of the fireplace, dispatching piles of paper that we had to move for Mills, and did it better than I could. She wrote me notes in meetings, made me laugh at just the wrong moments, and then she wrote "Shred this" and underlined it twice. If you told her a secret, it was safe. "This whole conversation has been in the vault," she said. She demanded to be loved, and that you pick up the freakin' phone right now. She loved her cat, Gander, who died six weeks ahead of her, and her cat, Pickle, who survives. She loved her friends and made a lot of them. She especially loved Anthony Schneider. I sat next to her on numerous occasions when he called her cell and cracked her up, with running jokes so deep and wide they sounded like a private nonsense tongue. She loved her brother and sister, her mother and father. Her house is full of pictures of them, letters, jokes they sent. Her novel is dedicated to her parents, who died with her. One draft of the dedication went like this: "For my mother, who is my biggest fan, and for my father, who is hers." So now we're left with two books, Circling the Drain and Wonder When You'll Miss Me, both full of vivid, moving and insightful stories, told in images that make you see better, in sentences like these: "Wonder was faster than memory or scent, faster than hunger or illness or regret. But not as fast as love. No, Wonder was not a horse who could outrun love." Or: "But all things affect each other. Everything changes. These laws of the world twist us in their palm. My parents' passionate beliefs thundered through them and into the embryo of my brother, waiting to blossom. The belief, which drew them close to begin with, loved my parents back." So I've done everything she told me to. I'm off the drug, and I have a cell phone. I just wish she'd call me up on it. — Cornelia Nixon - - - - I was mostly an observer of Amanda (and a reader of her work). I noticed her as a powerful, rather thrilling force of humanity when we met at Bread Loaf, in 1997. I live nearby and so return each year for brief visits, to peruse The Crumb, and keep up with friends. I always sought out Amanda, because she continually surprised. Whether it was an aside that was just a little funnier than I first understood, or more engagement in a moment's conversation than I imagined an extremely busy person would care to undertake — papers held against her sides with both elbows on one occasion — these moments were made especially vivid by this beautiful, funny, nicely nasty girl. At first, I was intimidated by the sarcastic edge of this young woman who clearly thought at a faster rate than I could. But the funny glances won me over. They were so intimate. She could simultaneously tease me mercilessly and pat me on the head comfortingly, all in one quickly morphing smirk from across the cafeteria table. Kids can get away with that and I love them for it. I barely knew Amanda, but she earned the same privileges by sheer force of personality. — David Steinhardt - - - - "When is Amanda coming to visit, Mommy?" Jack said. It is so difficult telling a six-year-old that one of his greatest friends is gone. He does not understand the concept. Nor do we, and we are well over six. He just wants to play with his friend, plain and simple. He still has the long bright ribbon from the present that she sent to him. That wonderful and most thoughtful gift of keys that made him light up. Amanda understood Jack so well, and she knew what would make him happy. He still has the letter that Amanda sent to him full of her funny little doodles that made him laugh. He still listens to the tapes that she made for him. Amanda shared her favorite music with Jack and now Lucinda Williams is one of his favorites. He keeps Amanda's gifts in a "treasure" box. Special gifts from his most special friend. "But who is going to write her books for her now?" he asked when he heard the news. Amanda filled the world with her radiant light, and we feel lucky to have been touched by that light. She was a pied piper and everyone wanted to go along with her, be with her, play her magical games and sing her songs. We hope she knew just how much she meant to us and how much we wanted her to be a part of our lives forever. We can't get you out of our minds, Amanda — and we don't ever want to. — John, Hope, Jack, Sophie, and Harry - - - - I only met Amanda once, for an hour-long interview that we couldn't seem to finish — we talked and laughed hard right up to her reading at the Regulator Bookstore in Durham, NC. My mom met her mom. We planned to meet again for another interview — this time for audio documentary I'm working on — the topic is "shopping and the creative process." Amanda was VERY excited about this topic. She told me the shoe story I read on this site. She offered to introduce me to another master shopper that she knew, a writer who would LOVE to talk about shopping. She said shopping WAS a creative process, and the worse her writing was going and the more broke she was, the more shoes she bought. She was funny and intimate and shared marvelous pieces of her life with me. We both talked fast fast fast because we only had an hour. I started the interview telling her how much I loved the book — this was my first author interview, my first book review, and I didn't know if you were supposed to do that but I did anyway. I've been grieving Amanda since I found out about her death on Monday, March 17. I could not believe that Amanda died four days after our interview. I transcribed the interview and wrote the essay, "Missing Amanda" for the local weekly paper here in Durham. You can read the essay at: http://indyweek.com/durham/2003-03-19/ae4.html I just found this website today. I think people in my life have had a hard time understanding why I've been so desperately sad about the loss of a girl I only met once. After reading these postings, I understand better. It's not just me. She had this effect on so many people. I'm working on a sound portrait of Amanda with the interview I recorded. I can't quite let go of her voice. Not yet. — Dawn Dreyer - - - - I knew Mandy from Wesleyan. I probably met her within a week of her arrival on campus due to her serendipitous housing placement and my penchant for haunting dorms in which I had lived. (She lived in up Foss One; I had largely misspent my frosh year on down Foss One.) I remember having many late night bull sessions with Mandy, the kind of rambling conversations that leave one hoarse from both duration and smoking. I remember her many varieties of laugh, from droll to out of control. I remember her seemingly nuclear energy. Being the last awake on the hall was a given. Once, Mandy poured an entire bottle of Tropicana orange juice down my trousers. I believe that this was in an attempt to shock me into cheerfulness. She was a wonderful friend to have, and though I didn't do a good job of keeping up with her over the years, I felt a great sense of loss when I read of her family's accident in this weekend's paper. Primarily the loss I feel is sympathy for the others who were lucky enough to have had her as a significant part of their lives these last years. I can tell from reading the tributes on this page she meant a great deal to many people; that the funny, dramatic young woman I had known at Wesleyan had really come into her own. To those who miss her most, I wish you strength and peace. — Daniel Rocker - - - - I left town on the day after Amanda's plane went down. I had just e-mailed to let her know I wouldn't be making it to her NYC reading because I'd be embarking upon a book tour of my own, heading South. After I saw something on the bottom of CNN's ticker about her book, I'd assumed first that things were going well for her, because I knew sky would be the limit for her and this second wonderful book — and of COURSE the title of it would be floating by from right to left on the bottom of the cable news channel while the impending war flashed above. I just caught the words Wonder When You'll Miss Me, and nothing else; the report wasn't repeated. I just assumed it was all good news, because it seemed like there was always good news from Amanda (even bad news seemed good). And nobody deserved the good news more than she did. I knew Amanda through a friend of hers from college, and mostly we became "colleagues" through connections in writing. She was so generous, and not snarky in any way about doling out honest, well-considered, professional advice. She was so willing to help and facilitate connections, and I always thought that if she had that much energy for me — a peripheral friend — I can only imagine (and now, thanks to this forum, read about) how generous she was to everyone else. I almost thought there was something weird about her willingness to help so much — can anybody be that kind? I guess so. As Sheilah Coleman shared elsewhere, Amanda hooked us up so that Sheilah and the dog I rescued could be united — and as Amanda suspected, it was a perfect, magical match indeed (as strange as that sounds). Just a little thing Amanda did that meant so much to a few other people — and to a real sweetheart of a dog too. On the road down South, I couldn't stop thinking, over and over, that there had been some mistake, that this couldn't have happened. That she wasn't gone. As I drove on the interstate literally miles from the crash-site in North Carolina, I realized I was embarking upon a trip that Amanda was robbed of mid-flight. Amanda didn't take the magnitude of and bravery inherent in what she was doing for granted. Nor should we. — T Cooper - - - - I knew Amanda in high school. She was a year ahead of me, and I lost touch with her after she graduated. I remember a great smile that told great jokes, and great big hugs that came from a great person. This week I'll be heading to the local bookstore to get re-acquainted with an old friend. — Chris Dunbar - - - - I only knew Amanda Davis for a single day of my life, and I've been sitting here trying to figure out why it is that I've felt so lost since I found out she was gone. She and I met last fall. We were both being interviewed for a magazine, for an article about first-time novelists. The photo shoot was being held at an abandoned airfield in Brooklyn, and we spent the whole day in this freezing cold airplane hangar, and a strange kind of camaraderie developed. It turned out that Amanda and I had both been at Wesleyan at the same time, although we hadn't known each other there, and we spent a lot of time figuring out who we might have known in common. At the time, I was nursing my son, and I needed to find a place to use my breast pump, and I was slightly embarrassed about the fact that everyone there was aware of my predicament. Amanda dedicated herself to helping me find a place in this surreal, wide open space that was both private and had a working electrical outlet, and I remember that I was very grateful for her help. The editors of the magazine had brought these awful white shirts for us all to wear for the photos, and since we were all wearing dark-colored pants and skirts, we looked like a bunch of waiters. Amanda was the first one photographed, and right afterward, the photographer decided that the white shirts weren't working, and the rest of us could change back into our original clothes. But they weren't going to redo her photos, and it just killed her to think that she was going to be the only one appearing in this terrible white shirt, instead of the perfectly lovely outfit she'd worn. (I still remember the details of the story she told me about how she chose the brown suede top she was wearing, and what a great deal she got on it.) A couple of months later, we found out that the magazine was closing its doors, and the article was never going to run at all. Amanda sent out an e-mail to those of us who'd been there that day with the subject "Yuck yuck yuck," which said only, "We wore those ugly white shirts for nothing." She and I exchanged a couple of e-mails after that one weird day, but that was all. Four days before her death, I wrote her to tell her how much I'd liked her book, and she wrote back to thank me and tell me how exhausting her book tour was. The way I found out that she'd died was strange and indirect — I'd been checking her Amazon sales rank every day, excited to watch it go up, and it was only when I scrolled down to read her customer reviews one day that I saw one that mentioned the plane crash. I felt devastated; my reaction seemed so out of proportion, given how briefly I'd known her, that it took me completely by surprise. After going over it again and again, all I can figure out is this: Finding friends isn't something that's come particularly easy to me since junior high or high school, or whenever it is that making new friends ceases to be an everyday activity. And I just had this feeling that maybe, if it was okay with her, maybe I could be her friend. And the idea that that's never going to happen, that the possibility I felt on that day is gone, just breaks my heart. — Carolyn Parkhurst - - - - I grew up in Durham and knew Amanda — as Mandy — for many years. We were in the same high school, the same synagogue, and, in the memory that keeps coming to me since I heard about her death, the same acting company. Young People's Performing Company met in the basement of the Durham Arts Council and was the sort of low budget, informal operation in which members of the audience would come visit cast members during intermission. Mandy was cast as my mother in a production of Look Homeward, Angel. In one scene, when we were arguing in front of the Gant home, Mandy was supposed to slap me. One night, she missed and instead hit a large column that was supposed to be part of the Gant house. I think I may have caught it before it fell, but Mandy and I, very professional, just kept going. After she went away to college, she wrote to me about my own struggles to decide what school to attend. "Don't pay attention to what anyone else thinks," she said, "Except me. Come to Wesleyan." I suppose she would have approved of my independence in choosing not to, but I ended up falling out of touch with her. I was living in New York when her book of short stories came out and every so often would think that I really needed to get in touch with her again. Reading over the stories here, I'm reminded again how very sorry I am that I didn't. — Todd Drezner - - - - I grew up in Duke Forest, Durham, NC. One year the trees across the road were cleared just so a girl named Mandy could live there. Who knows exactly when we met, because she was already a legend by age 10. I'd been only hearing about her in the neighborhood, not yet allowed to cross the busy street. It wasn't fair that I was in the city schools, she in the county, with a mere road dividing us. I knew even then that I was missing out on her. Maybe the first time we met was at the Faculty Club, a glorified swimming hole for Duke brats. In a game of Truth or Dare, she dared me to kiss Josh Miller. I'd just met him, but Mandy's intense air made me fear her Truth question more. I think she clapped when I kissed him quick. Over a summer, Mandy somehow became the focus of torment by one of my friends who found her to be incomprehensibly weird. I stood idly by, wondering what she could have done to deserve this. Kids. Years later, my parents finagled our way into that coveted county high school. I saw Mandy everywhere — and you couldn't miss her, as she always dressed like a rainbow. My penance for not defending her years before was that we had almost every class together. Finally! A chance to make it up to her, and to find out that she didn't need defending. In French class she called me Le Kathee, and I called her Le Mandee. She invited me to her house. Her room — what a mess! Her room was bright orange, red, and magenta… there were clothes, books, tinsel, pictures, jewelry, papers, medals… I think there was a bed in there somewhere… just everything all over the floor. Her room was an explosion of the things she loved. Clearly, this was a girl who played with all of her toys. When she first got her driver's license, we drove up to Chapel Hill in her dusty, red Volvo with the license plate that read "Poozie." She wanted to hit the Street Scene, a grotto where we liked to watch surly teens dance. But we stayed too long and suddenly it was 9 PM. She gasped dramatically — she was known for that — and ran us back to the car, wildly fretting over her parents' reaction to her missing the curfew. (Remember, we were only 16 and her mom was the school librarian.) This girl drove 65 mph in a 35 zone to get home. Of course she gasped and cursed again when red and blue lights discoed in the car's interior. She became frantic, quickly rehearsing a little song and dance before a cop arrived at her window. She told me to pretend to not speak English, as if that would help. The cop was a rather butchy lady — Mandy confusedly called her "Sir." Oh, Mandy! Her craziness filled the open spaces and I loved her for it. Later when her privileges were reinstated, we drove to the beach for the day. Her idea. The Pooziemobile moved carefully down the new I-40 to the sea four hours away. Mandy reported to me how she'd been stopped last week by cops who ticketed her for "coasting." Only her. She was animated and chirping. We passed a mullet-man in a Chevelle whose vanity plate said "Stroker." Mandy delighted over that, wondering about his life, how thick his accent probably was, how many teeth he was missing, and how he'd come to this. For about 100 miles we were tailgated by a giant 18-wheeler that aggressively filled her rear view mirror. The trucker blew his whistle several times at the innocent girls on their escapade, and this freaked Mandy out. The truck was barreling down on us, and she couldn't stand that feeling! When it finally did give up and pass us, we saw that it wasn't a giant semi at all, but only the dinky cab on six wheels without the trailer. Mandy erupted with laughter. The last of the Mandy capers happened right before graduation, at 2 AM, when there was no moon out. The lack of street lights made Duke Forest extra dark. She got it into her loopy head that we should sneak into the Duke Primate Center to see the monkeys and lemurs. I was the wheelman this time, turning us onto the gravel drive which led straight into the trees. We confidently waved away the meek "Do Not Enter" sign. Hesitantly, we rolled up to the obligatory "No Trespassing" sign. Mandy suggested that a "Turn Back Now!" sign should be next. The trees canopied over the road into a narrowing tunnel. She enhanced our uneasiness with spooky monkey noises. Though it was pitch black, we crawled on as the signs became more threatening and the darkness pulled us in deeper than we were willing to go. Then a loud "snap!" — probably a deer — and I spun the car around as she grabbed the wheel so it fishtailed, and we sped out of there shrieking and laughing so hard we were choking. All the way home. That was the night Mandy was dubbed "The Lemur Queen." After high school, the world opened up for Mandy like a vast sea and she just dove right in. She didn't resurface for me until her short stories came out. I was deeply proud of her from afar. Only last month did we reconnect with the e-mail of her book tour. We enthusiastically exchanged updates and remarked on how we missed each other. She gasped (still Mandy!) at learning we had both lived in New York City at the same time without knowing it. For three years! Cruelly, the chance to once again see her intense and troublemaking eyes didn't happen. Couldn't happen. But I do feel incredibly lucky that for a brief, flooding moment, she was in my life again. I'm thankful to those who have written here about the adult Mandy who I truly missed out on. I'm sorry that they missed the wild teenaged girl I knew. The Mandy in the red and orange dress who danced like a fireball, trying to single-handedly orchestrate 250 people for a yearbook photo. Or the Mandy who fearlessly dove backwards off a 60 foot platform. Or the Mandy who applied for a job as a Waffle House waitress just so she could wear the hat. Though maybe you did meet the very same girl, and I hope her spirit never stops dancing for us all. — Kathi Zung - - - - I was living with two roommates in Carroll Gardens, and Amanda called me to ask if I wanted to cat-sit for a month while she went to some writers' colony in California. This was in April of 2000 and we were not yet really friends, but getting there. She remembered, though, that I had mentioned being ready to look for a place of my own, and offered me her recently acquired apartment as a practice run. I accepted, and spent a month getting to know Amanda through her home. She had painted her home in colors that I would never have chosen but that I loved living in — deep teal, bright yellow, chartreuse, and orange. Her colorific walls, towering bookcases, and her cats, Gander and Pickle, put me fully under her spell. She was researching her novel and almost every day new circus-related books arrived from bookstores all over the country. I piled them onto the already huge stack of books on the double wooden folding chairs against the wall. One day I got an urgent voicemail from her. She had left her favorite gingersnap recipe at home and could I please e-mail it to her because she wanted to make them for someone's birthda