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All levels through first year college. Oh, the AP stylebook.  Try the MLA stylebook--more in keeping with traditional grammar. The type does determine whether a comma is to be inserted, but that actually is derivative from the parsing context. There may be some hinterland differences, but in general, that's how it goes.

When is the deadline?  I wasn't even aware the context had started again.

You can't be that old, they're mentioned in McGuffy's Grammar, *the* book on grammar in the 19th century.  From you picture you don't look a day over one hundred.

A metaphor is like your soul.  It must be watered daily.

The issue of commas is complex, but one of the reasons for the Oxford commas is that the traditional rule for commas in a series is that if the series is incomplete, you do need the comma before the last listing to signify that the list is incomplete.  For example, "My desk has pencils, wipes for my classes, and my tablet."  This would be correct as it has a couple of knives, my earbud, earphones, this computer, etc.  However, if I were to list all that Churchill had to offer--"blood, sweat and tears," then, as the list is complete, the and is sufficient.  The trouble with applying the traditional rule is obvious.  Hence why your teacher said it was optional. But as my grammar program and the Oxford dons would say, go ahead an put the darn comma in.  Whatever you decide, be consistent.  And fine, computer:  "blood, sweat, and tears."

j.p., I don't think people are intentionally insulting you when they say that.  They are suggesting that it might make a great novel is all.  There are lots of examples where an author turned a short story into a novel. Phillip K. Dick wrote a short story about a post-apocalyptic world which used the technology provided by Martians instead of rebuilding the planet, to make little dolls through which they lived their pre-apocalyptic lives vicariously.  He turned it into "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich."  There's "Flowers for Algernon," which turned from a short story to a novel to a screenplay. My short story, "The Gorgon," turned into a multi-novel saga.

And there are often different formats for ideas, and they can mean going from success to spectacular success.  Phillip Francis Nowlan wrote a book, "Armageddon 2419" that I've bet you've never heard off.  It's about a WWI Vet, Anthony Rogers, who, excavating a mine, gets overcome by gas and wakes up in the 25th century, where Americans are organized into gangs fighting Chinese Overlords.  It got turned into a comic strip, then a movie series, and a TV show.  The character got a nickname--he became Anthony "Buck" Rogers, and soon his first name was all but forgotten.

And dare I mention George R. R. Martin, who didn't mind at all his novels being turned into a TV series, even though they were altered in the process.  He didn't think that was an implied criticism, but rather what the different medium needed.

  I mean, it's not like they said, "You know, this really sucks as a short story, but would make a good novel," they are just suggesting directions for your creativity.

Awesome, Al.  Totally cool.  I look forward to reading it.

Well, Wolf and Raven, then.  Unless you want to wear those horrible horn-rimmed glasses.

Yay. I see the third installment, "The Final Conflict" is now being posted.  I won't get to it until I've finished "Raven's Curse."  But I will say this much.  Perhaps consider a title that stays with the books.  Not "Dawn of the Tiger," "Raven's Curse," and "The Final Conflict," but maybe "The Wolf and the Raven, then subtitle:  "Out of the Fog," "Raven's Curse," "The Final Conflict."  Anyway, great news, and I look forward to reading the third installment.

Thank you, Bill!