“My junior year of high school, I entered a creative-writing contest that awarded a significant cash stipend. I faced stiff competition from a number of Ivy League-bound classmates, but I submitted my essay with a reasonable expectation of winning. I am a great writer, a conviction I kept private for fear of sounding obnoxious. When my name was announced at our school’s closing ceremony awards, our class president actually stood up and cried “What?” in outrage and disbelief. What? How could I have beaten someone as smart and talented as him?”

“A few months ago, I had lunch with the writer behind one of my favorite movies of the year, the agent who made the deal and the producer who packaged the project. I wanted to hear all about the process and perhaps find an opportunity to collaborate. When the server came to take our order, I flashed to that scene in “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion” when Mira Sorvino walks into a diner in a striped skirt suit and asks the waitress, “Do you have some sort of businesswomen’s special?”

“I wrote about this experience, first as a fictionalized account in my novel before coming forward with the real story in an essay I wrote for Lenny. But something weighed on me heavily in the weeks leading up to the essay’s publication, something I felt guilty withholding. I told my agent, burning with shame as I spit out the confession, I ended up going out on a date with one of these guys later. What do I do if that comes out? No one will believe me. Who goes on a date with her rapist?”