Advice from Evans Harrington

Evans Harrington was my teacher in seven English courses at Ole Miss, and he directed my master's thesis on Faulkner.   In a letter he wrote me in February 1994, he gave some advice.

Work on your sense of reality, or unreality, in fiction or poetry or drama, or in philosophical essays.  You can't talk to anybody about the things that matter most -- well, maybe a few, in lucky encounters, but damn few and you can't sustain a discussion with even those: they leave, die, change.

     So write to and for yourself, and send it out, always prepared to have it ignored or sent back.  But paradox of paradoxes, one day, when you've really gotten it said -- quite probably without even realizing it, probably certain you've said it better somewhere else, in something already rejected -- somebody will pounce on it gleefully, and on you, celebrating you for all the wrong reasons, probably; and then you'll have more ridiculousness to work out with yourself in your writing. . . .

     This is damned good advice, and whether you take it or not, I'm going to.

Harrington passed away in December 1997, and the Evans Harrington Creative Writing Scholarship at Ole Miss honors his memory.