“Interactive. My task as a mentor is to discover where a writer wants to take a story, and then help them acquire the skills needed to get it there. This involves editing and teaching—I consider editing to be teaching on the page—and above all it needs careful listening to the writer’s voice.”

“My love of reading novels instilled in me the desire to write one. In my mid-teens, a novelist who taught at a local college did not laugh outright at my first attempt to write a novela, and became my first mentor. I’ve been trying to pay it back ever since. My love of the novel was later rivaled by my love of film, and I’ve always considered movies and novels to be close relatives. But I’m always drawn back to the novel because, as John Irving once remarked, when you write a novel, you get to direct. “

“E.L. Doctorow once compared writing a novel to driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. I encourage writers to trust the process, and to trust their subconscious, creative mind to guide them to writing material that’s both surprising and genuine. The act of writing always involves a pas de deux between the writer’s conscious and subconscious minds. It’s important for writers to find their flow state, and use that flow state to connect directly to characters. Because it’s the characters who determine what will happen in a story.”

“I’m a believer in the big tent theory of writing. Good writers can work in any or all genres, from the torrid romance novel to mind-bending experimental fiction. Some writers want to pen car chases and gunfights, others sparkling conversation around a dinner table and illicit romances in the kitchen. My task as a mentor is to discover where a writer wants to take a story, and then help them acquire the skills needed to get it there. I love working with writers in all genres, but I’ve read deepest into the mystery and thriller genre, speculative fiction, and historical fiction. “

“Voice Can’t Be Taught. This pronouncement, often delivered like one of the ten commandments, is a cop out. A mentor should know how to listen, and what to listen for, and then to tell the writer where the voice sounds strong and true. This is much harder than it might appear at first glance. Rather than teaching voice, a teacher helps a writer identify and develop their voice into something uniquely their own. ‘What you’re doing right’ is a more productive approach than ‘What you’re doing wrong.‘ “

“After writing two novels with a conventional male narrator, published by Viking Penguin, I began hearing the voice of a woman convicted of manslaughter speaking from a prison cell. The voice came to me like snippets from a distant radio station that gained in clarity the more I listened. Though I’d been raised hearing women’s voices—the men in my family didn’t talk much—this terrified me. Was it possible for a man to write authentically in the voice of a woman? I wasn’t sure of the answer, but the voice was so compelling that I couldn’t help but listen to it. The voice developed into a novel, Shooting Elvis, that has been translated into more than a dozen languages. This taught me the truth of the Miles Davis quote, “You don’t write what you know. You write what you hear.” “

“I keep a bookcase in my office stacked with books written by writers I’ve mentored. Some of the novels have been published by one of the Big Five New York houses. Some have been published by small, independent, or hybrid presses. Writers have so many options in this era. One of the many things I love about PocketMFA and the Novel Studio is the program’s focus on avenues of publication as well as literary craft. A successful mentorship looks to me like another book on my bookshelves, and another writer I consider my friend.”

“Stories lose their way most often when the characters themselves are lost, when they can’t quite figure what to do next. So I always go back to character, and the concept of conscious and subconscious objectives. What do the characters want and what will they do to get it? What do the characters fear? The choices that characters make while pursuing their desires and avoiding their fears not only define who they are as characters, they also constitute the basic elements of story. “

“The Grand Paloma Resort, by Cleyvis Natera, is a thrilling summer read with complex characters who stick with you long after you’ve read The End. Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner, because the novel blends genres in a way that seems impossible, but never loses its grip on the story or reader.”