My head is still spinning from the reading Malison gave in my master’s writing seminar this afternoon. I’d looked forward to some one-on-one contact, but the room was packed with people who aren’t even enrolled in the seminar. These kids weren’t writers, they were fakes. But did the teacher ask them to leave? Did Professor Nobody tell them that this was a class for serious writers? Of course not. He masks his cowardice with this “we’re all here to learn” cheeriness that really makes me sick. It was perfect then when Malison walked into the classroom. He saw all the copies of O’Flannery on our desks and he picked up my copy and said, “Who’s making you read this shit?” It was so perfect. Professor Nobody just stood there pretending he hadn’t heard Malison’s remark. He just stood there and tucked in his shirt. He couldn’t even own up to it! I think Malison hates O’Flannery for the same reasons I do, because she’s a fascist, a typical bourgeois racist, a judgmental Christian right-wing parrot, and a timid writer who relies on grammar to carry her through the page. I hate O’Flannery, I really do.

Malison’s reading was wonderfully assertive. He read a few sections from Rotunda Surf, parts that I had practically memorized even though the book only came out last month. He never numbers his pages, but I was with him for a good quarter-inch at the beginning of the second part. I just mouthed the words while he read. I wasn’t doing it for attention; it’s just a reflex action because I know his work, all of it, so well. After the reading, Professor Nobody opened the floor for questions, which was a mistake because it’s always the stupidest people who ask the most questions. For example, one guy who’s not even in the writing seminar raised his hand and said, “I tried reading your third novel but gave up when I realized that all of the characters were going by the name Smithy Smithy. I found it confusing; I had a real problem with it.”

Oh right, he had a problem with it.