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Alumni Spotlight: From Academic Success to Vulnerable Truth - Dan Fogel's Journey Through Grief to Viral Essay
by Writing Workshops Staff
2 months ago
When Dan Fogel's wife, Sue, died after 45 years of marriage, he thought he knew everything about her. Then he discovered her journals. The devastating revelations within those pages—including the line "I think I hate him," referring to Dan himself—became the foundation for one of the most powerful and widely-read essays in recent memory. His HuffPost piece "My Wife Of 45 Years Died. I Thought I Truly Knew Her — Until I Discovered Her Journals" was selected as one of the twenty best articles over twenty years in HuffPost Personal—a testament to the raw honesty and universal resonance of his writing.
A Life of Professional Achievement, A Legacy of Questions
Dan Fogel brings impressive credentials to his late-in-life writing journey. As a semiretired academic and entrepreneur, his career spanned international consulting, university administration, and groundbreaking work in environmental sustainability. He served as Dean of the International Management Center in Budapest, Hungary, held professorships at major universities including Wake Forest, University of Pittsburgh, and Tulane, and consulted for Fortune 500 companies across multiple continents.
But none of that professional success prepared him for the most challenging writing project of his life: excavating the truth about his marriage and confronting his own culpability in his wife's hidden pain.
Finding the Right Instructors for Vulnerable Writing
Dan's journey to publication didn't happen in isolation. He strategically enrolled in multiple Writing Workshops courses that directly addressed his subject matter and emotional needs:
- Writing Through Parenthood with Katie Reilly
- Writing Through Grief with Katie Reilly
- Grieving the Quotidian: Writing about Things We Lose with Paris Review columnist Jill Talbot
- Finding Your Voice with Lynne Golodner
This curriculum reflects someone who understood that writing about profound loss requires more than good intentions—it demands skilled guidance from instructors who understand the intersection of craft and vulnerability.
The Urgency of Limited Time
What drives Dan's commitment to his writing practice is refreshingly direct: "My runway in life is not that long so I am motivated to get my memoir completed." This awareness of mortality's approach provides both urgency and clarity to his creative work.
At an age when many people rest on their professional accomplishments, Dan has chosen the more difficult path of emotional excavation and public vulnerability. His essay demonstrates the kind of fearless self-examination that requires both courage and craft.
Learning to Stay True Without Apology
The most valuable skill Dan gained from his workshop experiences was learning "to stay true to my theme and not apologize for my writing." This lesson proves crucial for memoir and personal essay writing, where the temptation to soften difficult truths or explain away uncomfortable revelations can undermine the work's power.
Dan's HuffPost essay succeeds precisely because he resists the urge to apologize for his failures as a husband or to minimize Sue's pain. Lines like "I was successful but chronically bored, so I hopped around impulsively, securing jobs in various cities and dragging Sue and the kids with me. I was blind to her desires" demonstrate unflinching self-assessment.
The Value of Community Feedback
What Dan enjoyed most about his workshop experience was "the feedback from excellent participants and faculty." For someone writing about such intimate material, this community response becomes essential validation that the work serves readers beyond the author's personal catharsis.
The feedback process likely helped Dan understand which details and insights would resonate with readers who had never known Sue, transforming private grief into universal exploration of marriage, communication, and the limits of knowing another person.
A Viral Essay's Impact
The success of Dan's HuffPost essay demonstrates the hunger for authentic writing about life's most difficult experiences. The piece's selection as one of HuffPost's twenty best articles over twenty years speaks to its lasting impact and the skill with which Dan crafted his revelations.
The essay's power lies in its refusal to offer easy answers. Dan doesn't conclude with neat resolution or redemptive transformation. Instead, he offers the harder truth: "I want another chance to ask my Sue all my questions, but I am not going to get it."
Working Toward the Memoir
Dan's current project, his memoir Near Enemies: Why I Wish I Had Argued More With My Wife, promises to expand on the themes that made his essay so compelling. The title itself, drawing from the Buddhist concept of "near enemies"—loving gestures that avoid authentic truth—suggests a work that will examine how well-intentioned behaviors can become barriers to genuine intimacy.
The memoir represents the fulfillment of workshop training: taking a successful shorter piece and developing it into a book-length exploration that serves both personal understanding and reader insight.
Life on Lake Norman
Dan's current life reflects someone who has learned to balance productivity with presence. Living "north of Charlotte, North Carolina, on Lake Norman," he spends most of his time writing and completing his memoir, visiting with family and friends, and walking with his dog, Shayna Punim—Sue's final gift to ensure he wouldn't be alone.
The dog's name, "Shayna Punim" (Yiddish for "beautiful face"), provides a touching connection to both Sue's foresight and Dan's Jewish heritage, elements that thread through his writing.
A Model for Late-Life Vulnerability
Dan Fogel's story offers inspiration for writers who fear it's too late to begin serious creative work or too dangerous to write honestly about difficult relationships. His willingness to excavate painful truths and present them without self-protection demonstrates that powerful writing can emerge at any stage of life.
His success also validates the workshop model for personal narrative writing. By working with instructors who understood both craft and emotional complexity, Dan developed the skills necessary to transform private grief into public art.
As he continues work on his memoir, Dan represents the best of what Writing Workshops can offer: expert guidance for writers brave enough to tell difficult truths, and community support for the vulnerable work of turning life's hardest lessons into lasting literature.
You can contact Dan at dan@spthree.com and learn more about his professional work at SP3.
Ready to explore your own difficult truths through writing? Learn more about our memoir and personal essay workshops and discover how expert instruction can help you craft vulnerable experiences into powerful narratives.
Read Dan's viral essay "My Wife Of 45 Years Died. I Thought I Truly Knew Her — Until I Discovered Her Journals" and experience the kind of fearless honesty that transforms personal pain into universal insight.
