Member-only story
Mentorship’s Gift
A Lesson Taught, A Lesson Learned
The Road to Publishing Requires Mentoring and Hard Work
The autumn following my high school graduation, I loaded up my car to begin my freshman year at Guilford College. I was assigned to a modern residence hall, matched with a friendly and easygoing roommate, and given a challenging course schedule.
Without question, my favorite course was Jack Elliot’s creative writing class. I walked right up to him the first day to say hello, and he remembered me by name from my earlier visit to his class. Jack Elliot’s class set the tone for my studies the rest of the academic year.
Elliot told us the first day that we were going to learn to write and then write to learn. It sounded like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo that first week but eventually it made sense to me, and it pushed me to reach for higher level writing goals. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was being pushed to find my potential, something no other professor had yet challenged me to do.
Dr. Elliot laid wagers that each of us had a story inside of us, just sitting there, waiting to be told. If we were any good, he told us, he’d teach us the skills to write it.
I loved the class and knew immediately I was in the company of a master teacher, a…
