(This is a reprint of an essay I did for Small Beer Press–I’m headed to the airport and pressed for time. Next week, I promise, back to stuff about food, dogs, and TV.)

When I was in Mr. Fish’s class in fourth grade class at St. Columban, we had a mock election for President and I voted for Nixon. He won by a landslide. Granted, that was the year Nixon was re-elected in a landslide, but I proffer this bit of personal information as evidence that I am, at heart, a rather conservative person. I don’t want to be a conservative person. Studying literature and art, it becomes very clear that the really good writers and artists, the really important ones, are not conservative people. They are the people who institute change. Who make us see and think in different ways. So much of my life has been an effort to somehow convert myself from a mildly anxious, essentially conservative Catholic school girl into a radical, free-thinking writer. Read More »