some Target stores, and online at Amazon and bn.com. { { SEPTEMBER 2016 I BOROMAG.COM I 35 The following is an excerpt from one fateful scene in “Love Her Madly,” in which Glo, the main character, goes for a jog in an ominously foggy Astoria Park: My footsteps whispered off the pavement as I jogged down the slumbering streets that led to the park. A fog had descended, thick and milky. The graceful elbow of the Triborough Bridge extended up into a mysterious cloud mass, its red aviation warning lights blinking like the eyes of a hidden monster. For all I could see from the top of the park, Manhattan might no longer have existed. I ran past the empty Olympic-size pool in Astoria Park. It would be months before it was filled. There were a few other joggers out, their forms indistinct in the mist. Dog walkers skirted the periphery, wearing thick coats over thin pajamas against the damp, all of us ghosts to one another. away from the city to travel. “I wasn’t able to do the acting and the filmmaking, so I decided that I was going to concentrate on writing a more longform piece, and that’s where ‘Love Her Madly’ came from.” When she returned home to Astoria, she took her handwritten work and started writing it on a computer. Six months later, it was a book, she said. “Queens is a great place to work and to write because it is so diverse,” she said. “It’s really inspiring that despite the political climate we’re in, where there’s allegations that being surrounded by immigrants makes life dangerous, it actually makes life beautiful. It’s touching to see how well and how peacefully everyone interacts. I wish more people could come here to see how it really is.” Lee appreciates the artistic community in western Queens. “It’s really a wonderful borough because people are all facing the same challenges — nobody’s got a tremendous platform or millions of dollars to do everything they’d like to do with their art,” Lee said. “There’s a real sense of community because all we really have is each other.” This month, Lee and her writing partner have a screenplay taking part in IFP Film Week, which is a gathering of people in the film industry, to try to get funding for the project. Lee describes the screenplay as a “female-centric buddy horror comedy.” Additionally, Lee has another novel on the way. “Love Her Madly” is available in bookstores (including the Astoria Bookshop), Photo: Katrina Medoff/BORO
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