“Well, that’s one thing GWGW is suggesting,” said Marianne, clicking through to another PowerPoint slide. “Awareness of current events, current trends, can make something more likely to catch an editor’s eye, though I don’t know if it does anything for a book’s longevity. GWGW thinks they can also help us choose our next writers more carefully, so that we’re looking for people who are already producing work that is likely to be successful. For example, young adult and middle grade fiction—it’s a huge market right now.”

“Middle grade,” Lorraine mused. They looked at her expectantly, but she did not continue.

“Like Harry Potter,” Eric said. Lorraine looked confused but unperturbed by her confusion.

“I just don’t like the look of that cross,” Tom said, shaking his head at the GWGW logo at the bottom corner of the screen. “It creeps me out, that big shadow.”

Marianne nodded encouragingly. “You are resistant to some of their corporate imagery. What about you, Lorraine?”

“A curriculum would be helpful, on the other hand,” Tom continued. “I mean, it’s hard to know what to do with some of the submissions. I’ll be honest with you; I’ve got a lot of criers in my group. I don’t think photocopying Norman Mailer is gonna do much to turn that around.”

“I’m meeting Regina Somers for dinner tonight,” Eric said. “I can talk to her about our curricular needs.”

“Was she the hot one on the tour yesterday?” Tom asked. “With the updo and the fuck-me heels?”

Eric reddened. “She’s one of the specialists.”

The hot one? The fuck-me heels? Marianne thought, looking down at her flip-flops and chipped blue pedicure. “Davonte’s going too,” she said.

“Davonte Gold?” Tom said. “Freaky.”

“My workshop was going quite well, I thought,” Lorraine said finally, turning over the GWGW water bottle Marianne gave her as if calculating exactly how much vodka-and-cranberry it could store. “We started from scratch and have been accessing primal memories. Productive work, in writing and in life. But of course I agree with Thomas that I want my students to be successful in whatever … arenas seem most compelling to them. They are not readers of Poetry magazine. They are not readers.”

“Yeah,” said Tom. “I agree with Lorena. At first I thought, ‘What if this gets out and people think I was working for right-wingers? How will this affect my teaching career?’ But then I realized, how will this get out? And also, who am I kidding?”