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You posted this piece on several sites on the same day, so I keep bumping into it. I noticed in another forum that someone replied "Great spill." From the context, it appeared to be a sincere compliment. But really, is that how you want your work to be acknowledged? As spill?

Here is a detail, but I think it is a clue to how you operate: You spell surrounding correctly twice, but misspell it four times. Yes, it's a little thing, but it tells me that you don't go back and read what you have written. Even you don't read what you have written! You spurt it out and...

This is one part of your approach to writing that is wrong, and earns you some of the ridicule you receive. There are rules of grammar and punctuation, and basic vocabulary, that writers break at their peril. Even experimental writers who seem to blast past the rules of style are usually...

Wait a minute. Hold it. There's something wrong here. No editor would allow this mistake to get to print. No, I'm not talking about the whole thing being a mistake, I mean "passed" instead of "past." Not only that, but I can't find this piece or any work by Mr. Larsen in Aries Literary...

Oop. Duplicate.

And here is a random example of a company that provides the service you are talking about: http://www.mycreateabook.com

I am familiar with Aries. Which issue?

No doubt about it, Mr. Larson, we love to hate your writing. So I'm going to pose a different challenge to you: List some authors whose writing accomplishes the innovativeness you're talking about. Give us a clearer idea of your literary tastes, in addition to your own literary...er...skills.

Softcover if I'm going to carry it, but I like old bindings if I'm going to get comfortable with a book at home. Blue pencil. I'm an editor. Neither clips nor staples. I like to keep things loose. File folders if I really need to keep something together. In hand, but we have a...

Two in a Bed: The Social System of Couple Bed Sharing, by Paul Rosenblatt, State University of New York Press, 2006.

Can't go wrong with Sylvia Plath. She's in right now, and I think a lot of her poems would be the right length. My favorite is "The Mirror," but there are many more. When you read them out loud, be sure to put some bitterness into it. She sure did.

I tend to research books before I buy, reading reviews, talking to other readers, consulting if-you-liked-that-you'll-like-this lists, etc. I don't really browse much or buy on impulse. So no, I don't usually bother with the back cover. Sometimes, however, the back cover can be fun to read...

A novel for teenagers, for example, is best around 50k. Some publishers of adult novels specifically require 100k. But what I'm more concerned about is that you wrote your novel in two weeks. That isn't nearly enough time to develop a story. You talk about the possibility of shoehorning a...

I think I'm more of a Barbara Ehrenreich, Susan Faludi kind of feminist reader--the power of economic forces more than the power of myth.

Advice for insomniacs usually includes not reading at bedtime. This is one of the reasons.

Oops. Other Voices Magazine has no online edition, and doesn't publish poetry--not even bad prose poetry. Your piece appeared in the Other Voices International Project, which is online only and has no print edition. It really isn't that bad a venue, yet you still felt the need to inflate...

This is one of my favorite classic works of literature. The portrayal of tortured souls sometimes had me jump out of my chair. One thing I noticed in class was that the girls all liked it and the boys all hated it. But that could have been just us.

What's this thing you have against rhyme? That's the second time you've singled it out as your only specific complaint about some poems, or as you would put it, "poems." You need to read more Philip Larkin, for example, so see what rhyme can do.

A one room, fourth-floor walkup under the eaves of an 1880s building, with my husband and our 2,000 books. In a few months we're moving to a more spacious neighborhood and renting part of an old house.