Once, when I still had a job, a coworker read a piece of my writing, sighed, and said, “Oh, to be young and write angsty poetry.” I was twenty-one at the time, a month out of undergrad, and never had I been so insulted. I was an adult! I could drink! Older men could hook up with me without going to prison on statutory charges. How dare she! But I never said that. I blushed, crumpled the paper into the shape of my fist, and never showed her my writing again.

Was it angsty poetry? Probably. Adolesc...