[3] In her childhood and early twenties, Winik focused on writing poetry, publishing two collections, Nonstop and Boycrazy.

[5] These essays caught John Burnett's eye, who was an NPR reporter based in Austin, Texas at the time.

[6] The following year, a literary agent contacted her, resulting in the 1994 publication of Telling, a collection of Winik's essays.

[7] A couple of years later in 1996, Winik published First Comes Love, a memoir about her marriage to Tony, who died of AIDS in 1994.

[8] In her review of the book in the New York Times, Daphne Merkin wrote, "Marion Winik is resilient, hardy, unfazable; this self-described "suburban boho wannabe" is a frontier woman in disguise.