I got a job out of college as a staff writer on a magazine in Los Angeles. The other staff writer was Steve Erickson. He wrote fiction, complex, passionate, brilliant stuff. I tried to write fiction. Occasionally I'd write something decent, but most was bad imitation Vonnegut. Steve and I were friends, collaborated on music reviews and critiqued each other's stories, but I didn't have a clue how to get to his level. Steve would go on to publish seven novels with publishing houses like Random House, get a MacArthur Genius Fellowship and to be critically accla more...
