THANK YOU! I LOOK FORWARD TO THE WORKSHOP. I AM STILL A POET EVEN THOUGH IT TROUBLES MY FAMILY MORE AND MORE. IF YOU ARE THE PERSON WHO RECOMMENDED ME TO REGINA SOMERS FOR PUBLISHING WORK ON THE SCHOOL’S WEBSITE, THEN THANK YOU VERY MUCH. J.

She hit Send, and was surprised when a new email popped up almost immediately.

IF YOU ARE TROUBLING YOUR FAMILY IT MEANS YOU ARE DOING IT RIGHT. L. P.S. I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT REGARDING THE SCHOOL WEBSITE?? WHAT IS THAT ABOUT?

Janine replied,

THERE WAS A BIG TO-DO OVER AN ARTICLE THAT WAS CRITICAL OF THE RANCH, WHICH WAS IN THE SARASOTA PAPER. THEY WANTED SOME SAMPLE WORK AND ASKED ME. I SENT THEM “FROM INSIDE” BUT NOW I THINK THE POEM SEEMS VERY UNFINISHED. I AM ALSO CONCERNED THAT I AM NOT WRITING VERY MUCH AT ALL, JUST THINKING AND EXPRESSING THOUGHTS THAT ARE MAYBE A LITTLE DISTURBING TO MY FAMILY. J.

There was no response right away this time, and Janine went in and stirred the onions—they had browned a little too much—then added the peppers, diced squash, eggplant, and tomatoes, and put a lid on the saucepan. She returned to her computer, hit Refresh, and found another email:

THOUGHTS ARE EVEN BETTER THAN POEMS. DON’T LET ANYONE EVER TALK YOU OUT OF THEM. BUT I AM CONCERNED THAT YOU WOULD BE PUSHED TO SHARE WORK YOU DON’T FEEL IS FINISHED, FOR THE PURPOSES OF THE SCHOOL’S REPUTATION AND PUBLICITY. L.

Janine had also learned that you needed to allow the conversation to wind down, that you should be mindful of your hierarchically superior correspondent’s time, but she thought that Lorraine had misunderstood her hesitation as a complaint, so she quickly wrote back:

THANK YOU! IT WAS AN HONOR TO BE ASKED, BUT MAYBE NOTHING WILL COME OF IT? I WILL LET YOU KNOW. J.

The webinar was hosted by God’s World God’s Word and began with a prerecorded PowerPoint about some of GWGW’s other campuses. Janine had taken several webinars with GWGW this summer and was already familiar with the slightly tacky self-promotion, but there were a few campuses she did not recognize. The GWGW School of Social Work, the GWGW High-Tech Career Institute, and the GWGW School of Charter and Home Schooling Administration were all new, housed in modern-looking glass-and-steel buildings, if you could believe the drawings. The accompanying stock photos showed attractive women in business attire, wearing scientific-looking goggles and leaning over attractive, obedient-looking children, respectively.