Flash back. It's the 1980's, and I'm undergraduate in college. And this conversational loop is playing everywhere I go. People keep asking: "What's your major?"

Me: "English."

"So you want to teach?"

Me: "No, I want to ask people if they want fries with their meal."

Prophetically, that's exactly what I did after I graduated. I was wrestling with the question of whether to go to law school. Looking back, what was holding me back was un-diagnosed dyslexia. School was never easy for me, and I realized in law school people play for keeps. So, to inform the decision, I grabbed a copy of Scott Turrow's One-L. It's a book chronicling his journey through Harvard Law School. Let me just say right now that it's a book that scared the hell out of me. His account was unvarnished and direct and stripped of law school brochure marketing rainbows. Of course, the joke all pre-law students made at the time was "Of course Harvard Law School was tough for Turow. He was also writing a book at that time."

So that became my strategy. Go to law school, and don't write a book my first year. Advice I still think appropriate for everyone.

But, Turow was influential in other ways. His novel Presumed Innocent along with the non-fiction book The Prosecutors by James B. Stewart helped make the final push. Once I realized my goal was not to be a law student, but to be a prosecutor, everything fell into place. But I went into the experience eyes wide-open thanks to One-L.

Honored to be in a category named after Turow's book, and honored that Best Story Wins is helping law students and new prosecutors everywhere.