Just Another Ordinary Writer

By Kara Jacobs

I received bad news the other week. I am ordinary. Thank god my parents are dead and gone. The news would have killed them.

It started with feedback on a piece I’d written for and read aloud in a small writing group, one of those writing groups in which you are all friends and support each other unconditionally.

My piece was about childhood family vacations. “Well,” said my friend Rose, when I finished reading and sat back with my customary half-embarrassed, half-self-...