Now I Feel Better About All the Bad Novels I've Ever Read

David Mehegan (Boston Globe) writes about the growing reputation of novelist Jennifer Haigh as her second book, Baker Towers arrives in bookstores and the author begins a 40-city tour. Along the way, Haigh reveals the advantages she discovered in quitting her magazine editing job to focus on fiction and, eventually, applying for an MFA in creative writing:

"The famous Iowa program helped her, she says, but not in the way she expected [Mehegan writes]. The feedback she received on her own work didn't help much. However, 'I spent hundreds of hours reading other people's misshapen or ill-conceived first drafts. It sometimes feels like a waste of time that you'd rather spend on your own work. But week after week in these workshops, you are forced to articulate what is wrong with this chapter or story. Other people's errors are so apparent. Your own never are. In the process, you acquire the skills to do that with your own work. It's a brilliant system.'"