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The title grabbed my attention: \u201cThe Perverse Monstrosity of Our Beautiful Work.\u201d<\/a> So did author L.L. Barkat\u2019s first sentence: \u201cIt was the suckiest letter I ever received.\u201d Any article that combines perversity, monstrosity, beauty, and suckiness just has to be read.<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ Barkat\u2019s \u201csuckiest letter\u201d was in response to something she had written. Someone didn\u2019t like her work, and told her in no uncertain terms. I\u2019ve received a few letter\u2019s like this over the years, not to mention several dozen blog comments. I don\u2019t especially like polite criticism. When it comes with meanness, I want to clobber somebody with a baseball bat or, rather, go crawl into a hole. L.L. Barkat knows just what I mean.<\/p>\n

But her article goes on to talk about how, before receiving the nasty letter, she had recently been exposed to a variety of artists whose craft was honed by criticism. I won\u2019t steal Barkat\u2019s thunder here by outlining the rest of her piece. Rather, I encourage you to read it<\/a>. It\u2019s a helpful reminder as well as a \u201cnot sucky\u201d piece of writing.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"