Well, here I sit, MFA in hand, and now I think I need to be all literate. But all I want to do is read cheap mysteries and drink bourbon by the mug-full. That's not all true, but it is kind of funny how people look up to you and/or get all scared when they ask me what I'm reading.
"So what do you think of Harry Potter?" they wonder.
"They stink," I say. "Read Proust."
And that's the end of that conversation.

Let me tell you about my good time with Over The Rhine in Santa Fe. Our graduating cohort had a nice graduation ceremony, and Karin and Lindford supplied the music. Very nice and emotional. Sniff Sniff. Part of the ceremony included brief readings of our work, read by two faculty mentors, to give the audience a taste of our writing. Well, they lost my excerpt. After grad, Karin told Cyndi that I should pick something out and that she, Karin, would read it during their concert.

So that's what I did. "Do you want something tame or spicy?" I said.

"Spicy," she said.

That evening, near the end of the OTR concert, she read my piece. It was amazing! She's got a voice that melts butter and leaves you wanting, well, er, something. She joked with me afterward that Linford and I should start a literary mag called "Mennonite Erotica."

Yadda Yadda.