here the story begins is that we’re creative writers. We write books. We can’t help it. It is arguably not our fault that this is the only thing we are good at. So imagine getting this job: creative writer. And you go to the address and then you discover that it’s a haunted, decrepit mansion. It’s a really unpleasant place and there are ghosts, none of whom will tell you what your job responsibilities are. They shriek at you and recite T.S. Eliot. It’s like this haunted mansion is so bad, the ghosts don’t even know why they haunt it. And your job is to go there and die, to die hunched at a desk with a machine, by killing yourself slowly, and smearing your every drop of blood over so many miles of clean white pages, ruining them forever. And you call your parents and you tell them that you got a job.

Will Read 4/20/99 at Illinois State University 1:00 114K RealAudio Clip