Brian Lam

When I was 6, I remember reading the New York Times upside down, aloud, to show off to my delighted parents. I wrote a dramatic short story later that year about an earache, with the word ’suddenly’ in the lead and a crayon drawing of an ear with lightning attacking it for the cover art. I had an affinity towards the written word. They said I would be a writer when I grow up. I recall not liking that idea as much as I liked the idea of being any number of other dream jobs typical of boyhood; firefighter, cowboy, astronaut, race car driver. And I spend the next 20 years resisting that notion, resisting ever learning the formal rules of grammar as well as I should, wandering through business school with little interest, feeling the honest satisfaction of blue collar work while mopping up a boxing gym at the end of the day. And yet, somehow, everything’s lead up to this moment where I have a comfortable job writing without having ever planned for such a thing. Thinking about things like this, I feel powerless against fate.