Sam took another sip of the pruno. It went down smoother this time, possibly because he no longer had feeling in his extremities.

Sam took another sip of the pruno. It went down smoother this time, possibly because he no longer had feeling in his extremities.

You don't see Los Angeles erecting a museum dedicated to the birth place of the Crips and the Bloods and the Mexican Mafia, with a special guided bus tour highlighting the rise of the crack trade, yet you can hop on a bus in Chicago tomorrow to see the famous locales of murders. I have to imagine there's some wonderful academic book on the sociology of this out there.

The fact is, though, what I think we really like is Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and James Gandolfini. We like what the media has created of the mob bosses in movies and TV and books, because it's something the average person never comes into contact with, it's almost as outwardly outlandish as a sexy vampire, and so we can romanticize it, it's non-threatening.

And there are rules for crime fiction. Or if not rules, at least expectations and you have to give the audience what it wants.

I'm not Pollyanna - I know that my personality and my opinions and how I approach the teaching of writing maybe isn't exactly how it's done traditionally in the academy...wherever that academy is...but, you know, the academy is broken as it relates to many creative writing programs.

Particularly with MFA students, who have so much invested - literally and figuratively - I feel like honest criticism is something they're owed. It's not going to be easier in the real world, surely.