Years ago when I was in college, my professors told me, “You should think about teaching. You’d be good at it.” But I didn’t want to teach. I wanted to be a writer.

I did become a full-time writer, eventually. In the meantime I became a study abroad administrator, an admissions recruiter, a publications coordinator, a career counselor, and a financial counselor.

(I did have a short stint teaching at a university in Mexico early on, but I told myself I wasn’t any good at it—I couldn’t motivate the students who didn’t want to learn, the ones who talked through class and rolled their eyes. But the ones who did want to learn? They loved me and I loved them.)

Life went on, and it looked as if I were zig-zagging through a zillion careers, but if you looked closely, you could find some common threads—things I was drawn to, things I sought—and one of them was this: connecting with people. When I recruited for university admissions, driving all over Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana in a red Ford Taurus sedan with a trunkload of brochures, I enjoyed sitting down with high school students and talking to them about their futures and academic interests. When I was a career counselor for The Women’s Center in Chapel Hill, working out of my upstairs, closet-sized office that I loved with a view into the trees, I looked forward to talking with clients about their career aspirations—what did they want to do, what was holding them back, and what tools did they need to become successful? I liked taking on interns and helping them get the skills they needed to launch their careers. I loved training, mentoring, and yes, teaching, though I am not sure I would have ever used that word exactly, not back then. Now I can see I was teaching in small ways all along but without the title.

When I applied to master’s of fine arts programs in creative writing, I looked for studio programs—programs that focused more on how to write, less on how to teach. I wasn’t planning on becoming a professor, so what did I need all that for? But looking back, I do remember thinking that one day, when I had a book or two under my belt, I wanted to teach at writing workshops and conferences like the ones I had attended. I’d had my fair share of good teachers (the ones who taught me craft tools that I still use today, the ones who encouraged, the ones who inspired) along with my fair share of the bad (the ones who said none of us were good enough to write a full-length book, the ones who delivered criticism with knives instead of neutralities, the ones who got exasperated with beginners). I wanted to take all of the good things I’d learned and I wanted to help others the way I’d been helped.

It’s kind of funny how life can be taking you along a road for years, for decades even, and you’re so busy chatting and looking up at the stars and looking down at your feet that you don’t have a clue what the destination will be—you’re not even thinking about a destination, you’re thinking where the heck is the bathroom and I’m getting hungry, did anyone bring some food? And then you arrive, and you open the door, and you realize the door was there all along.

I’ll be teaching another memoir/personal essay workshop in January. This won’t be my first time teaching it, but I still bring that giddiness to it that reminds me of other kinds of firsts—first day of school, first day of the new year, first love. I’ve been sitting at a big wooden table at the back of our house, a place by a row of windows, and poring through essays and memoir chapters and finding what I hope will be just the right prompts and pieces to show these writers the tools that can help them chisel out their most important truths, the stories that keep them awake at night, their stories that need to be heard.

I love seeing writers grow and change. I like seeing their lightbulb moments. But every single time I teach, my students teach me something in return. I change and grow and am better for having known them and their work.

The motto of my alma mater is: “Having Light We Pass It On To Others.” My professors did that for me all those years ago and now it’s my turn with my small but unflickering light. I guess they were right after all when they said I should think about teaching.

(Photo credit: Kelly Blanchard)

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Upcoming Workshops

The Art of Memoir/Personal Essay: A Generative Writing Workshop
Tuesdays, January 5-February 2, 2021, 2:30-4:30/5 p.m. (EST):
Join me in this online (Zoom) workshop during which you will generate new writing, read writing that inspires, and learn some tools and techniques on the craft of personal essay/memoir writing. The goal is for you to leave with first drafts and a writer’s toolbox ready to help you finish and write the rest of your own life stories. Cost: $329. Limit 12 participants. Register here. Learn more here.

Let’s Write Together!
Having a hard time finding inspiration and motivation to write? Join me for any (or all) of these online one-hour sessions. We’ll talk about a piece of writing, I will give you a prompt, and then you will WRITE. These workshops are part of Press 53’s High Road Festival of Poetry and Short Fiction. Cost: $10/session.
December 29, 2020, noon (EST): Register here
January 12, 2021, noon (EST): Register here
January 26, 2021, noon (EST): Register here
February 9, 2021, noon (EST): Register here