• Every Writer Has a Story • Rethinking Feedback • What is Feedback? • EQ • Sarah Stewart Taylor: “Wow! This could be my job.” • Getting Feedback • Is It You . . . or Is It Them? • Processing Feedback • Samina Ali: “I would have sold my soul.” • Twenty-Two Years • Editing Your Editor • Ernest Hebert: “I wanted writing to be easy for me and it wasn’t.” • Feedback Hotlines • “Danger, Danger, Will Robinson!” • Jennifer Crusie: “A story is a collaboration between a writer and a reader.” • The Club • Waiting for Feedback • Archer Mayor: “Emotion is a blinding force.” • The Value of Toxic Feedback • Giving Feedback • Preventing Mental Meltdowns • The Power of Positive Feedback • Grace Paley: “My nature wasn’t ambitious enough to go ahead on my own.” • A Right Way and a Wrong Way • Can You Please Be More Specific! • Khaled Hosseini: “Even if the book is good, no one is going to want to publish it.” • The Moment of Truth • Common Human Decency • Don (D. B.) Johnson: “My best advice is to marry well.” • Editorial Biases • Get That Look Off Your Face • Ted Kooser: “We all serve communities.” • Small Miracles • In the Company of Writers • Hey, Let’s Put On a Workshop! • How to Have a Good Group Discussion • Gregory Maguire: “I don’t revise in an architectural way.” • Who’s in Charge? • The Top Ten Rules of a Successful Writing Group • Julia Alvarez: “My dream of becoming a writer was a fool’s dream.” • Meet the World’s Worst Workshop • Publishing • Jodi Picoult: “I call our relationship my second marriage.” • Can Creative Writing Be Taught? • Crystal Wilkinson: “Processing feedback has to be a meditation.” • In Appreciation of Bad Writing • Epilogue: Feedback and the Real World • Acknowledgments • About the Author