I was thirty-five when I came to Cornell, having at long last finished my undergrad degree, after a young adulthood misspent (or well-spent, depending on how you look at it) playing music and being generally dissolute. I was what they call in the biz “a late bloomer,” and I was serious about making up for lost time and becoming published as widely and well as I possibly could. Unlike many people who attend MFAs and dip their toes cautiously in the publishing pool, I approached it like the problem kid at a pool party doing the cannonball. I wanted in.