Me? A Teacher?

Although I come from a family of teachers, I never saw myself as one.

My mother taught art in junior high school and, later, ceramics and other college courses to art students. My mother-in-law is a retired teacher, and my younger son is studying to be a high school biology teacher.

But me? Sure, I’ve enjoyed giving the occasional critique to fellow writers, but I’m impatient with people who aren’t seriously interested in learning a subject. Besides, the only thing I really know about is writing.

I had a lot of writing teachers. We can start with Mrs. Tyler and Mrs. Hitchcock in high school, and then there were some distinguished instructors in college, including Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Howard Nemerov and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright William Gibson (The Miracle Worker).

Later, while working as a journalist in Southern California, I took a few writing classes here and there, and joined a critique group that I’ve participated in for more than 30 years. Many members have come and gone – including Elizabeth George and T. Jefferson Parker.

I learned from my editors (don’t ask me how many – after 87 novels, I’ve lost count) and some of my agents (there’ve been three or four, but only two that count). I also learned from my editors at a daily newspaper and The Associated Press.

Along the way, I accumulated a lot of knowledge and skills. It seemed almost a shame to have gained so much insight when, let’s face it, I’m hardly Shakespeare or even J.K. Rowling.

A couple of years ago, a fellow writer tipped me off to a college-accredited distance-learning institute called Long Ridge Writers Group, for which she was teaching. I applied, was thoroughly evaluated and trained in their curriculum of short story & article writing and an advanced course on novel writing, and set loose on an assortment of students from all over the world.

During the last couple of years, I’ve learned something: that I’m a teacher. I doubt I could stand in front of a classroom and deal with bored adolescents or disciplinary problems, but I love working one-on-one with motivated writers from their teens to their eighties. The payoff is seeing many of my students make tremendous progress, and hearing back from them how much the experience has meant to them.

I’ve written an article called “Ten Things a Novelist Learned From Teaching Writing” and posted it at http://www.jacquelinediamond.com/WritingTeacherTips. If you get a chance, I hope you’ll take a look.