I was talking to my graduate class a bit … about how career writers–career anything, I suppose–are always having to list their shiny accomplishments, and how it would be such a great relief sometime to write up your Anti-Vita and let people see it.  It would be such a moment of candor, of behind-the-curtain truth.  All the awards you didn’t get, all the amazing journals your work wasn’t good enough to be published in, all the prizes you were nominated for but–oops!–didn’t actually win.  Sigh.  All the teaching innovations, trotted out with such high hopes, that failed miserably.  And so on.  How you sat at home on the sofa and muttered, “What’s the point?,” embarrassing yourself and boring your family members, who tiptoed quietly away.

Revealing all the failures would be such a relief, such an exhale, such an “I’m nobody, who are you?” opportunity.

—Joy Castro