I asked my high school English teacher, Father Elliot, how I could improve my literary style. He told me to be quiet, to keep my hands out from under my knees, and to stay after school to write for the Roger Bacon Yearbook. I mostly heeded that advice, taking to heart his pejorative urging, "Write what you know." Junior year an infatuation died potato-famine-like and Phoenix-like I climbed from the ashes to a full-time, long-term relationship promising...