Separation of Life from Life

Abstract

A student wrote me a kind thank you letter, reminding me of my once saying, “Don’t write about death. Death is boring, and we all do it.” In conjunction with another former student who met me and said he still imitated me—five years after graduation—asking his tutees about their writing, “Why should we care?” I felt a frisson of pleasure— especially after a term in which six students of my advanced class wrote and revised seven publishable stories. And publishable in my terms is no mean feat, which in turn makes each student feel justifiably proud of his or her hard work and accomplishment. They are not things I remember saying, but they are certainly things that I might well say.