Well, actually, all of those contributors weren’t U. Chicago folks. I was doing an MFA in Fiction at U. Mass-Amherst then, along with David Berman, who moved his act to Nashville and became a recluse because of his obsessive fans.

I actually gave a copy of my smart-alecky review to Donna Tarrt when she read in the area that year. She had been given a half-million dollar advance, which at the time was an insane amount of money for a novice author.

I wound up teaching high school English and Spanish, but am currently trying to script a graphic novel project. I was very flattered that Tom Franks remembered my piece when I talked to him at a book signing in Ann Arbor several years ago.

-Richard Kolbusz, Jr.