[image error]Welcome to the corner of my living room, where I'm sitting at a mismatched desk and chair. Stella the greyhound snores at my feet. I can reach out and touch:

1. a rejection notice from a literary magazine. A big theme in any writer's life is rejection. Keeping one of those impersonal "thanks but no thanks" notes in plain sight might seem masochistic, but I actually find it inspiring, in an "Oh yeah? We'll see about that" way.

2. a photograph of my nieces and nephews with their arms around each ...