{"id":4100,"date":"2018-10-01T05:41:07","date_gmt":"2018-10-01T09:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/?p=4100"},"modified":"2026-02-21T09:14:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T14:14:06","slug":"i-love-to-mentor-writers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/i-love-to-mentor-writers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Joy of Mentoring Writers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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My college creative writing mentor was amazing: funny, good-natured, and inspiring. I took every course she offered, both literature and creative writing. I even took what that college called a \u201cJanuary Project\u201d: a short intensive course between first and second semesters. We studied a novel and some short stories through the lens of psychologist Karen Horney\u2019s work on cultural conflicts. It was unforgettable, and gave me a whole new way to read and enjoy fiction.<\/p>\n

My mentor offered me the chance to do unofficial teacher training with her because I wanted to become a teacher as well as an author. So I got to sit in on one of her classes in my last semester; afterwards we\u2019d discuss what was going on \u201cbackstage.\u201d We didn\u2019t just talk about how she had put her syllabus together and picked the books, but analyzed how she orchestrated a class moment by moment. She was especially good at working with what might look like chaos to outsiders\u2014those moments when the class seemed to go off on a tangent.\u00a0 She modeled how to weave those tangents into the main discussion but also explained that tangents often helped build group cohesion.<\/p>\n

While I\u2019ve been a full-time author and reviewer since graduate school, from 2011-2017, I was an adjunct at Michigan State University and fortunate enough to teach writing workshops and literature courses I love. Perhaps because I\u2019ve published more books than all the tenured creative writers in my department combined and knew the publishing world in ways academic writers couldn’t, writing students asked to work independently with me.<\/p>\n

No matter what the genre they\u2019ve chosen or how often we\u2019ve met, everyone grew as a writer. That was my goal, because my question before working together each time was Can I help this student do what they already do better?<\/em><\/p>\n

Assisting students as they progressed through various drafts and deepened their stories or personal essay, I could pass on what I learned from all the accomplished newspaper, magazine, anthology, book and magazine editors I\u2019ve had over the years. Best of all, I felt myself connected to my college mentor, whose devotion to students was exemplary. Working one-on-one during office hours, I heard my students ask questions that I asked when I was their age and discovering myself as a writer, learning my craft, finding my subject matter, finding my voice.<\/p>\n

When I left, I started mentoring writers, most of them adults, And now that I’m teaching writing workshops online and helping other writers edit their manuscripts, the experience of mentoring has blossomed in new ways.\u00a0 My workshops are limited to only ten participants, and I truly feel I can give them the in-depth feedback they need.\u00a0 I’m free of the stresses and strains of working in an environment that doesn’t always put students first, and isn’t very collegial, either.<\/p>\n

But one thing hasn’t changed.\u00a0 As always, if I\u2019m momentarily stumped for a comment or response, my mentor seems to pipe up with the right thing to say. All these years later, she\u2019s still guiding me.<\/p>\n

Lev Raphael is the author of twenty-six books<\/a> in genres from memoir to mystery, available on Amazon, and his work has been translated into fifteen languages.\u00a0 He teaches creative writing online at writewithoutborders.com<\/a> and his next month-long workshop runs August 1-31: Finding Your Memoir<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My college creative writing mentor was amazing: funny, good-natured, and inspiring. I took every course she offered, both literature and creative writing. I even took what that college called a \u201cJanuary Project\u201d: a short intensive course between first and second semesters. We studied a novel and some short stories through the lens of psychologist Karen … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[240],"tags":[438,95,1247,830,321,1540,1541,863,1495,1542,84,737,19,324,241,242,82,206],"class_list":["post-4100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teaching","tag-creative-writers","tag-creative-writing-2","tag-creative-writing-workshops","tag-essays","tag-fiction","tag-fiction-workshops","tag-fiction-writers","tag-memoir","tag-memoir-workshops","tag-memoir-writers","tag-mentoring","tag-mentors","tag-novels","tag-short-stories","tag-teaching","tag-teaching-creative-writing","tag-teaching-writing","tag-writing-workshops"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4100"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8243,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4100\/revisions\/8243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}