I recently had a chance to hear from my old writing mentor, MSU-Mankato writing professor and novelist Terry Davis. Davis was pivotal to my development as a writer and I recently jotted off an email to him, bringing him up-to-date on my writing career since my college years ended 16 years ago.
Davis is still an active writer and busy professor, but he took some time to reply and still offer a few words of encouragement. It’s nice to know that after all this time and all the students who’ve come and gone in the time since I was under his tutelage, he still remembers me.
While I have a basic respect for all teachers, rare are the ones who become real mentors to you. Davis was probably the most influential on my life. Anyone who hasn’t read Vision Quest, Mysterious Ways, or If Rock-N-Roll Were A Machine, It’d Be A Motorcycle are really missing out. Although he works in the young adult genre, there’s little in his work that meditates on the trivial aspects of growing up, like acne; Davis’ novels are mediations on the nature of being alive, no matter what age one might be.
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