Got my fiction portfolio back, it includes the highest compliments I could hope to get from my teacher, Rob, Fiction Teacher to the Stars. Let me be boastful and share them here:
"Dear Liz," (that's me)
You just continue to improve and I couldn't be more pleased. The story -- that long, complex account of a life, is coming together as fiction and that's the goal. I look forward, if I get the chance, to see what you've done with Carol and the others. (aside: I think Carol is no longer with us, but the others very much are. I won't bring Carol back until he's really fiction. Right now he's just a sad, angry caricature of a man I once knew, and that's sort of lame.) It seems they have come to life, become their own characters separate from the people you know...You're leaving the raw material of personal life (often less interesting to others than to us) and exploring the vast world of the interior landscape, and you do it with humor and honesty. Fantastic work.