I was already honored to have my essay "A Fitting Memorial" republished in this college composition textbook. But it was only after I plucked it from the mail on Friday and read the table of contents that I got extremely excited. First off, I'm in the same chapter as Jon Stewart. Oh my god! The book also contains essays by Susan Orlean, Ira Glass, Maya Angelou, Steven Pinker, Dave Sedaris, Malcolm Gladwell, and other amazing writers, like my former Salon colleague Andrew Leonard and fellow Bay Area writer Susan McCarthy. I seriously feel like the looser dorkwad who somehow got invited to the cool kids' party and is just praying nobody notices I don't belong.

Even though the book is geared towards students--reading guidelines precede each entry and study questions and exercises follow--I'm still looking forward to dipping into some of the excellent pieces published in the book.
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