I think it's because we've credentialized writing to such an insane degree that Iowa is now the Hollywood of literature, with similarly depressing results. Just as you can't learn to be a reporter by going to something called "journalism school," you can't learn to be a novelist by sucking at the teat of Joyce Carol Oates. Reporting, and novelizing, require a combination of teeth-clenched courage and spastic determination that schools are specifically designed to groom out of us. It turns out that hormone-pumped, antiobiotic-filled laboratory literature they produce is just as nasty and bad for us as tainted beef or dairy.

Go on with your bad self, Choire, you're refreshingly unjournalistic.