Mentors, Muses & Monsters

Autumn - and the start of the new school year - is a fine time to consider our mentors, writing teachers who make a difference, and the myriad kinds of influence available to writers and aspiring writers. This panel will examine the role of mentors in their literary development; whether books can be mentors, not just muses; whether "monsters" can be mentors too; and how their ideas of mentorship have changed as they've become mentors themselves. Panelists include Thomas Beller, Dani Shapiro (both students of the late Jerome Badanes), Elizabeth Benedict, editor of the anthology, Mentors, Muses & Monsters: 30 Writers on the People Who Changed Their Lives, and critic Maud Newton.