Those of you going on the academic job market this fall: I want to tell you a story.

But first, this isn't a story that ends with an academic job, or one that teaches you how to beat the market.

But I still think this is an important story. I hope you'll listen.

In the fall of 2017, I was ABD, and a school asked me to apply for a VAP. It was exactly my field - minoritarian literatures and creative writing dual appointment - and at a small school that I had very close ties to. I won't name it, because I still respect many who teach there.

I applied. I got a Skype interview. The interview went well - really well, I thought. But I didn't get asked to campus. They invited three people. If I remember correctly, I was 4 on the list. Every person invited was a man.

I was crushed. After I recovered a bit, and because I knew the dept chair well, I emailed and asked if I could do a debrief on why I wasn't asked to campus. She said sure. And she sent me a lengthy email. To this day, it's one of the best gifts I've ever gotten.

What she told me was that the hiring committee, made up of dept folks as well as people from other disciplines since it was a SLAC, felt I didn't have enough publications. At the time, I didn't have many.

This was a teaching-focused school. But publications made the difference for a few people on the committee. The chair also told me that she and another professor wanted me there. They'd fought for me. But the others overruled them.

I thanked her. I puzzled over the process and their final hire - they couldn't have found a single woman for the top three? A single person of color? But I tried to let it go. I made my peace with not getting the job. And I went back to my writing and my dissertation.

The following year, I got an email from the chair. She wanted me to come to an awards dinner for a friend of mine who was also a friend of the department. I said sure, without thinking about it.

When I looked at the guest list a few weeks before, I realized I was the only non-department member who had been invited. The places at the table cost $1,000 a head. Also on the guest list: the guy who had gotten the job I wanted.

I dreaded the dinner for weeks. But I went. It was a 2-hour drive. I rode with the chair and several dept members. The drive was like a job interview. They asked me about my dissertation, my career plans, my writing, my future research. By the time we got there, I was exhausted.

When we walked up to the table, I found that I had been seated next to the guy who got the job I wanted. On the other side of me: a professor who had hit on me in the past.

I spent the entire 4-hour dinner seated between the guy who got the job I wanted, who proceeded to talk about himself all night, and a man who wanted to tell me in detail about the sex practices of French Polynesia.

The guy who got the job? I'd read his work. Not impressed. His personality was mediocre. The guy who hit on me? Unrelenting.

That was, hands down, one of the worst nights of my life.

It was also a light bulb moment.

I realized for the first time that people were right about academia. Getting a job has nothing to do with your qualifications. Nothing. Everyone applying for the jobs you are applying for is just as qualified as you are. What matters are factors you have no control over.

Since then, I've watched some of the smartest, most well-published people I know apply to 300 jobs and barely get an interview. I've also watched ABDs with few publications get jobs because they knew someone at a school.

It's. Not. About. Merit.

Even if you do the work, get the publications, get the degree, academia is a lottery, pure and simple. And there is no easy fix for this unless the system is completely overhauled.

If you do not get a job, you are not a failure. You are simply not one of the lucky ones.

As for me, I've made my peace with the whole system. I'm applying for some fellowships, and I'm adjuncting this semester because I need the money, but I won't stay here. That dinner made me realize that there is no academic job worth debasing myself that way again.

Since 2017, I've published a lot, and in big publications. I've gotten a notable in The Best American Essays. I've published work that I'm incredibly proud of, work that I would have been afraid to put out there if I'd gotten that job. That's a win to me.

That guy who got the job I wanted? He's still on faculty at that school. He's got a book, which I don't, so I suppose that's his edge.

But my work takes tremendous risks, risks I don't think would be taking in academia. And so, IMO, that's my edge.

There's no happy ending here, except to say I'm proud of the writer I'm becoming, and I don't think I'd be here if I had gotten that job. But also? Don't let academia gut you. Don't let it take your ability to take risks or your happiness.

And don't, don't let academia destroy you if you don't get a job. Don't. You are who you are no matter your title or rank or position. You're going to make your own path, just like I am. Just watch.