He and I both teach there. Blaylock is the head of the Creative Writing department—my boss—and our attitudes toward fiction writing are pretty similar: take your story seriously, make it intriguing and accessible and entertaining to readers, and work at getting it published. The ceiling of the basement room I generally teach in is papered with rejection slips the students have received, and they’re always adding more—and many of them have already made professional sales, too. There aren’t actually any chairs or desks in that basement room, just pillows and beanbags and an extensive library that stretches away into other subterranean chambers. The Creative Writing department is in a converted 19th-century church, complete with choir lofts, and tall stained-glass windows, and this catacomb basement which Blaylock took over. I’ve taught fiction writing at a lot of places—at various colleges, and the Clarion Workshop at Michigan State University, and the Writers of the Future Workshop in half a dozen cities—but I’ve got to say I’ve seen the brightest and most promising writers at OCHSA.
