Literary nemeses

And other links for your Sunday

I used to have a list of literary nemeses — people whose success felt like a personal affront to me. Seeing them publish in places made me want to publish in those same places, and I did. Except for one outlet, Slate, I published in the same places as all those nemeses. Slate has never published any of my articles. Which used to anger me, but now it’s really funny. I pitched them articles for years in those florid internet blog days of the early 00s, when I was sitting in an apartment in Cedar Rapids, just trying to be a writer and desperately wishing I was cool enough to be on Gawker or Feministing. These quiet competitions fueled me for years.