I’ve been doing lists — big magazine package lists and little one-hit-wonder online lists — for nearly six years. It’s a weird niche to have, certainly.

Anyways, this list is undoubtedly the one into which I have put the most personal time and effort. I’m very proud of it for many reasons. I realize most of Tumblr may not be intensely interested in high school rankings, so I won’t bore with the details.

Yesterday, I finished reading “Fiction Ruined My Family” by Jeanne Darst. Towards the end of the memoir, Darst recalls how when she finally became a published writer, people assumed she must be a good writer. I, too, once figured that if publications (esteemed publications with readers across the nation and the world) were willing to employ me, pay me and publish my stuff, I must be a good writer. I must have talent. Of course, the obvious truth is, lots of fantastic writers never get published. Lots of terrible writers get published consistently. If you get published, your asshole quotient very likely exceeds your talent quotient.

I am certain that, though this list will not be winning any pulitzers and though it didn’t involve any writing for me (i mean it’s a fucking click-bait list), I could not have put this together last year. It’s a remarkable feeling to be able to see something in print that’s the culmination of years of work, to some degree, and to know it’s a personal/professional landmark of a sort. 

Writing about a person whose work you like & respect is a strange. It takes a better writer than I to do it without getting all gushy-worded. 

It’s also strange to link to my own work, but fuck it.  I had fun with this piece.