On the morning that I begin again on my quest to develop my writing, what should appear in my mailbox but the most beautiful literary journal of all time?

I subscribe to many writing magazines and poetry publications. As a writer, I am always hungry for more to read, more great writing to absorb and hopefully ingest in such a way that I can then speak and write beauty because it is in my blood, a part of who I am, it is something innate and necessary; writing is my breathing in and breathing out.

So, what is the absolute best writing journal the world over? It is the J. Peterman & Co. Catalog. Nothing else is as sure to make me weep with joy! Truly. Just about every other literary magazine I receive makes me so angry that I regularly can be found tossing them across the room, and bursting into tears of frustration. There are so many great writers. How come it is that the journals tend to so frequently publish incomprehensible stuff that seems written specifically for a tiny, chosen few who will understand it and make the rest of us feel like uninformed boobs?

Perhaps angering writers is their objective. Maybe getting furious is supposed to provide the impetus to churn out ever better writing of our own. I just hate the process.

What I love – what is always sure to awaken my senses and take me away to another world, where I am the most glamorous, sophisticated, eloquent and worldly version of myself is the J. Peterman catalog. Each time I read it, I am complimented as a woman for my fine taste, the way I enter a room, the way my gown hangs off my shoulder, the way the spotted doe eats white chocolate from my finger tips. I am swept away and fall in love with the charming woman J. Peterman sees in me. What better compliment could any woman desire than to be seen as utterly desirable and brilliant?