These Precious Days: Essays

Ann discovered Snoopy and the Peanuts comics over summers spent at her grandparents’ place in Paradise, California. Snoopy, a dog who is a writer, has a huge influence on her. Ann reflects on how Charles Schulz, the creator of the comic, raised the value of imagination for her, depicting the dog imagining himself in various extraordinary scenarios with great conviction: as a World War I flying ace or a volunteer in the French Foreign Legion, among others.

Snoopy taught Ann about what it is to be an aspiring writer. His experiences across cartoon strips map out the writing life for her, from the importance of critical reading to working, rewriting, spending time with oneself, sending one’s work, and receiving rejections. While Ann would have become a writer and loved dogs without Snoopy’s influence, she believes the two would not have intertwined without him: Ann’s current dog is named after Schulz, whose nickname was “Sparky.” When people ask Ann about her literary influences, she reflects on how there was just one: Snoopy.

Ann picks up a copy of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse to re-read; the copy has a foreword by Eudora Welty, describing how Welty came across Woolf’s work. Welty asserts that in reading a “great original work,” the discovery of it depends not on its initial newness but on how it seems to offer something new each time it is reread.