there is a visiting writer at my school now. he teaches a an advanced fiction writing workshop for seniors on the creative writing/fiction track. his stories have been published in anthologies with those of carson mc cullers, william faulkner, flannery o'conner and truman capote. his french translator is the same guy who did hemingway, faulkner and steinbeck. one of his novels won the prize for best foreign novel from the academie française. he's letting me in the class. i'm not on the creative writing track. i've not even taken a single college english course. i am afraid. when he let me start sitting in on the class, which consistes of only two other students, the stipulation was that i help workshop the other students' work and that i share some fiction with the class. i was supposed to bring a story in this friday. this was wednesday. today is now thursday, and i am incredibly afraid of bringing in my two stories that i wrote tonight, one of which i'm not convinced is even a story, and seems suspiciously stolen (or even worse - borrowed) from borges. it wasn't on purpose, but i think one of his stories crept up on my page... the other story is much longer (still very short) but i am still very much afraid of giving it to him. the other students don't intimidate me, but this man, this incredible man leaves me feeling inadequate as a writer even more than usual.