NHPR Radio

I met Virginia Prescott at a writer’s gathering last summer.

I’d been assessing the gathering crowd, convincing myself that somehow I belonged among a group of writers, poets and artists alike, when I noticed her.  Well, not so much her, but the long, to the floor, aquamarine halter dress she was wearing.

I swear my mom had worn the same dress in 1972.  

When I approached her and told her how much I loved her dress, I’m so glad I had no idea who she was.

Because, in fact, I did know who she was. Her lovely voice fills the air in my car nearly every day at noon.

Knowing only her first name, I talked freely about writing and blogging and social media and most likely dress styles of the 1970s.

It wasn’t until she said she’d like to hear more about my book and my blog and handed me her business card, that the puzzle pieces fell into place.

“You’re Virginia Prescott?” I said looking down at the NHPR logo on the rectangle of card stock.  My mind quickly tried to replay all the ridiculous things I must have said in our conversation, while at the same time my mouth blurted out,  “You’re too gorgeous for radio.”

She’d just laughed before telling me to shoot her an email and walking away.

“Virginia Prescott?  Her voice is a smile on the radio,” my husband said when I told him about meeting her.

And sitting across from her in the studio last week, I couldn’t have agreed more.  From the moment she began talking, to the moment she asked me one of her thoughtful, engaging, signature questions and offered me a reassuring smile, I forgot all about the headphones and the silver microphone, and the producers in the control room on the other side of the glass and that she was Virginia Prescott.

She was just Virginia, the woman in the really cool dress I’d met at a party last summer.

And we were just having a conversation.

A conversation you can listen to here.