Finding old E-mails and remembering my teachers

Moving from the home I love, and going through a ton of boxes trying to sort out what I can keep, what is useful, and what I will never use again is stressful, frustrating, and sad. But it is also interesting. While looking through files, I found emails I had saved from my teacher and my mentor, Nancy Simpson, the wonderful poet who was a founder of NCWN-West back in the 1990s. 

She was a dedicated leader of the writers in our western NC area, encouraging, motivating, and inspiring. She taught special education for children in elementary school. She adopted an orphan Vietnamese boy and raised him with her two biological sons. She adored him and he felt the same about her. 

Recently, I have begun to learn about emotional intelligence. Nancy was smart, funny, and above all caring. She felt empathy and compassion for others, and she expressed her feelings in her poetry.

Goleman's EQ theory comprises five core components: empathy, effective communication or social skills, self-awareness, self-regulation, and motivation. 

Nancy exhibited all of these in her daily life. I didn't know at the time that I had a high EQ myself. Perhaps that is what she saw in me because she immediately selected me for a leadership position with NCWN-West. She asked me to take the publicity coordinator's job. I had done publicity for our genealogy group in south Georgia where I lived before moving to the mountains. It is my nature to do the best job possible when I take on a task. 

It was perfect for me. I interviewed the writers who were going to do readings and wrote articles about them for the local newspapers. I had them send a photograph to go with the articles. The local newspaper liked them and always published them. In the past, the announcements of writing events were typed and mailed through the USPS to the county papers. But I used the computer which was beginning to be popular. I had worked in an office for five years and I knew something about the Internet.

Nancy was so good to me that I would do anything she needed me to do. When she asked me to become the Clay County Representative I accepted the job and enjoyed it. She and I grew close as we worked together over the years and I took all of the classes she taught at the local community college. Without Nancy, I would never have published my poetry chapbook. She read it, helped me organize it, and even chose the title for it. Now Might as Well be Then. That was a line in a poem in the book.

I am a product of the teachers in my life. Nancy was one of them. I had an art teacher, Verna, in Albany, GA, who taught me to paint in oils. She also became a wonderful friend.  I could lose myself for an entire afternoon as I painted on canvas following her classes. She helped my self-confidence and made me realize I had talent.

My older sister and my younger sister have been teachers in my life. June, the oldest, taught me when I was a child, by example. I admired how she always looked her best, behaved like a lady, gentile and well-spoken. I wanted to be like her and will always remember her kindness and generosity to me. Her words of encouragement and approval got me through college years and boyfriend breakups.  She, like my mother, enjoyed people. She was friendly and had a beautiful smile for everyone. 

Gay, June, Lee, her daughter, and me

My younger sister, Gay, is still teaching me. Because of her, I see that it is never too late to follow your dreams. She will be taking part in a ballroom competition this week. She has always loved to dance and decided a couple of years ago to take ballroom dancing simply because she wanted to dance again with excellent partners. Now she dresses up in beautiful gowns, wears dancing shoes with heels, and enters competitions with others in her age category. Not too many in her category, but it matters not. She dances as well as many who are younger. She is a great role model. This is just one of her many attributes I admire.

My sister, Gay, Dancing

I learn from the students who take my writing classes. I think I am a life-long student as well as a teacher.  Hearing their stories about their lives takes me to interesting places, people, and lifestyles I will never know first-hand, but can experience through their words. One of my students, Abbie, is visually impaired but has written and published several books. She has a lively website and blog on which she stays connected to other writers with vision disabilities, and is generous with her reviews and promotion of their books. I admire Abbie because she doesn't let her disability stop her. She lives alone but still goes out to sing at the nursing home and she travels by air to visit family many miles away from her home. She has mastered the technology available for the vision impaired and helps others who take classes like mine. Abbie has brought several blind students to my classes. 

I have been blessed with wonderful teachers and you probably have individuals in your life who helped make you who you are.  Tell me about them in the comments.

WHAT MAKES A WRITER A GOOD TEACHER?

Tonight I had dinner with Lana Hendershott and her very nice husband, Steve in their house in Hendersonville, NC. Over tacos we discussed what makes a good teacher of writing. Does writing an excellent novel make the writer a good teacher? Can a writer who has not published a book be a good teacher? What makes a student leave a class enthusiastic and excited to get home and begin writing?

A good teacher has to know more than facts about writing. A good teacher must interact with students and give the students confidence to continue with their efforts, to continue to learn more and more and hone their talents to write the very best possible short stories, memoirs, poems, or novels they can possibly write.

Recently a student told me she had left my class so excited about writing her stories she could not wait to get home and get on her computer.
Later she took a class with a well-published writer whose work she admired only to leave the class feeling diminished by the teacher. She felt so intimidated, her confidence in herself dropped as low as it could go.
She indicated it might be a long time before she tried her hand at writing again.

Perhaps the well-published writer/teacher should have promoted her class "for experienced writers." She might have expected her students to be thick skinned and familiar with the rough world of rejection and harsh words of someone who has been in the trenches and knows the ropes.

I remember being that new wanna-be writer who just needed a few words of encouragement. The closet writer who could barely stand to read before a group. And I've seen a good writer become an outstanding writer because in the early stages of his work a teacher saw his potential and gave positive feedback before she pointed out the errors and mistakes he must correct..

In critique groups that succeed for years and years, the writer is first praised for the good things in his story, and then shown how he could inprove the rest.

I recently met a writer, Barbara Lawing. She has a novel coming out and I hope she has much success with it. Barbara critiqued an article for me about ten years ago. She was a beginning editor and I had recently begun submitting my work. I got my money's worth of critique from Barbara, but she used her red pen so heavily, so drastically, that I felt overwhelmed when I saw my manuscript. My immediate thought was, "this is a piece of crap and I can never make it good enough."
I put the article away and I've never looked at it again.

I told Barbara about this when I met her, and she was apologetic. "I was new at this business," she said. "I learned not to do that sort of thing."
And then she gave me her business card and invited me to take some classes with her.

Whether a writer is a best selling author or has published short stories only, this tells me nothing about him as a teacher. I took a class with a poet who is considered one of the best, but if I had taken to heart his criticism of my work, I'd not likely have a published chapbook now.

Sadly, some writers teach just to sell their books. Some use the classroom as a place to build their ego.

Have you taken a class with a known writer and been disappointed in the way he taught? Have you taken a class with a highly touted poet or writer only to be disappointed when she seemed to care very little about you as a student? Let me know your thoughts on this.