There's hope in the word: Advise from an unlikely mentor

Nina Simone: To be Young, Gifted and Black.

Sometimes we just have to be grateful for the little things or what appear to be little things in life. Last week, for example, I had expressed to you how I’d taken the advice of a literary agent who contended that agents don’t take on writers with collections of short stories. However, a chance meeting this week with Elizabeth Strout, Pulitzer Prize winning author of the short story collection “Olive Kitterage” gave me so much hope that I literally flew across the sky and back again. “Agents need you, honey. They need you more than you need them,” she had said as she clutched my beaten up book (the one I read five times) that I gave her to sign. It was the most amazing thing an accomplished writer has ever said to me (besides poet Nikky Finney telling me at a reading that she was so grateful for my questions; they made her think).

I had always expressed to my partner how much I desire the mentorship of an older writer--someone who has accomplished a lot and don't mind taking the time to mentor your writers seeking to build their own paths in the literary world. I've reached out to a few, one in particular who is young, Black and well---gifted. But to my chagrin, she has looked the other way, more interested in the height of her heels and what she'd wear to AWP than mentorship. This broke my heart as I had thought belonging to a certain group meant reaching out to mentors of similar hue.

Silly me for believing in sisterhood. But then again, who wants to babysit others? Bestselling authors have better things to do like book tours, readings,live up to the expectations of their lucrative advances, teach overzealous students, and manage not to spill wine on their clothes at book parties. I've since realized that what I was looking for as a young writer was a simple word of advise that I could take with me and cherish forever. And that was exactly what I found this week from someone I least expected.

Since the first day on campus, Miss Elizabeth Strout, a visiting writer in residence, and I bonded over our tastes in similar books, Alice Munro in particular. She had even asked me who my other favorite authors who inspire were, and I had blushed into a fit of soft giggles like a dumb cheerleader in front of a jock as I uttered her name first before I listed Paule Marshall, James Baldwin, Alice Munro, Edward P. Jones, Junot Diaz, Edwidge Danticat, Jennifer Eagan, and Jhumpa Lhairi. I felt myself gaining confidence as I watched her put her hand on her chin as she focused, contemplating my words like she does all her flawless sentences on a page. After a while she was pulled away by other students who wanted a piece of her precious time; but she left me with the most precious gift of them all. Her word of sound advice loaded with optimism: "It can happen. Don't you dare give up and listen to others; just keep pushing froward and believe".

Nicole © 2011

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