“How My Essay Squeaked into The New York Times” / David Kalish

For several years now, my wife has urged me—in no uncertain terms—to submit an essay to “Modern Love,” a column in The New York Times that explores the complexities of modern relationships.

I hemmed and hawed. Despite having a compelling story to tell—how my cancer derailed our dreams and brought us unexpectedly closer — I knew my chances of acceptance by The Times were miniscule. Moreover, I was reluctant to revisit painful real-life material.

But Ingrid, who tends to speak from the gut, was insistent. “Just do it!” she said. “And stop procrastinating already.”

Turns out I finally got off my rump. And wouldn’t you know it? Today (Friday), for all my self-doubt, The New York Times published my essay, “A Path to Fatherhood, With Morning Sickness,” on its online site. The article appears in the print edition on Father’s Day.

How I made it into The New York Times is itself a story that bears telling.

I credit, in part, my wife’s persistence. Night after night, we’d be lying in bed with the newspaper spread out around us. After reading Modern Love, her favorite column, she’d blurt: “You need to be in here!”

I countered that the Modern Love column receives about 8,000 submissions a year, and publishes only 52 of them. I figured I had a better chance of getting smushed by a falling branch in the forest than getting accepted by the Grey Lady.

And while I’d covered much of our struggles in my comedic novel, The Opposite of Everything, I felt awkward as a writer reliving the same material as fact. By writing about yourself, you expose your choices in ways that can be discomforting. Plus the people I write about may not like what I write.

But even as I doubted, I played with material. I brainstormed ways to create a coherent story. A writing group I belong to offered me suggestions on how to improve my piece. And over two years, an essay materialized.

In early April, after too many revisions to count, I submitted my essay to the Modern Love editor, Daniel Jones.

A month passed by. One evening, sitting at the kitchen table with Ingrid and Sophie, I noticed I’d received an email in my inbox. I read it. My first reaction was that the Modern Love editor mistook me for another writer. Then I grabbed my head and paced the house and freakishly chanted: “Oh my God. Oh my God …”

One of our dogs started howling. Sophie was weirded out. “What happened? Was there another terrorist attack?” Ingrid asked.

I spit out the news. I was flabbergasted to say the least. The acceptance came at a time when my other writing has been in a rut. My family gave me a warm group hug.

Last week, the editor and I had a back-and-forth over the phone for about thirty minutes. He told me he’d been looking for a piece with a Father’s Day angle, and mine fit the mold. Feeling like I’d won the Lottery, I answered his questions on my essay and he told me he’d be cutting several hundred words so it could fit the space.

A few days later I received his edit of my essay, which I had a chance to review. My essay then went through copy edits, the last round. Throughout it all, I felt slightly incredulous, as if afraid to wake from a dream.

This morning, when I saw my essay in The Times, I finally believed that something nearly impossible had actually happened.

I’d beaten the odds despite all my insecurities.

As I say in the last sentence of my Modern Love essay:

Lumps and all, not a bad deal.

David Kalish writes essays, novels, and plays. He is the author of The Opposite of Everything (WiDo Publishing, 2014), a romantic comedy and cancer story rolled into one. This post originally appeared in the Times Union blog where Kalish contributes regularly.