In Memorium
Marpessa Dawn Outlaw
February 9, 1962 -- March 7, 2005

I met Marpessa Dawn Outlaw in the summer of 2001 when I was helping to edit her fine short story, Still Life, for the first issue of the Bellevue Literary Review. She was always on the run when I called her--she was only reachable by cell phone--and from the prosaic confines of my office, I always wondered in which exotic locale she was as we spoke.

Marpessa and I began to have periodic “writers’ lunches” at the East Bay deli.across the street from Bellevue Hospital, at a nearby pizza joint, or in the faculty dining room of the NYU Medical Center.

I learned that “Still Life” was a part of a larger, much more ambitious and creative effort. Marpessa’s book and other writing projects and my own writing filled our meetings. Her illness was in the background, behind her creativity and wide-ranging interests, as it was for Gwen in Still Life.

Marpessa wrote about art andculture for the Village Voice and the Los Angeles Times. A transplanted Angelino, Marpessa divided her time between New York City and Rome. Despite her chaotic schedule, she always found time to attend the BLR readings and events.

Marpessa was a wonderful, warm, courageous, creative woman, a unique life force. I, and many others, will miss her.

Jerry Lowenstein
Nonfiction Editor