“Elizabeth Gilbert has a new memoir out.” The mere sentence radiates gentle inspiration–watercolors, billowy pants with elephants printed on them, sparkly truthtelling in a big straw hat.

— Elizabeth Gilbert’s Latest Epiphanies, by Jia Tolentino

I dismissed Gilbert as trivial until I heard her interviewed on Debbie Millman’s Design Matters podcast a few years ago and was impressed. Gilbert was promoting her novel, “City of Girls,” and I read that and loved it.

Debbie has exposed me to a couple of books I would normally have dismissed as women’s literature, written by women whom I previously dismissed as frivolous, and I have been surprised to find I loved the interviews and the books and that the authors were formidable. The other one was Susanna Hoffs, lead singer of the 80s group the Bangles and author of the novel “This Bird Has Flown."

Debbie and I were friends when we were teenagers, and I still think of her as a friend, even though we haven’t spoken in more than 35 years. I’ve followed her career from afar with great interest, happiness and respect.