1985–86, I was a student at Ole Miss and I had heard that Barry Hannah would be teaching. A poetry professor recommended that I get to know him, saw I went the library and picked up a book. That book was Airships.

Over the summer, I wrote a short story, and as soon as I got back to school, I found his office and asked him to read it. He did, gave me some good advice and lots of encouragement. Unfortunately, he wasn't teaching a writing course that semester, but he gave me permission to sign up for his graduate-level Development of the Short Story class, even though I was an undergraduate with barely any English lit classes, because I had just changed my major from Computer Science to English.

This is where it happened. I wrote a second story and showed it to him, he took it, and instead of responding directly to me, he read it out loud to his graduate short fiction class. With me sitting there. Then we discussed and dissected it. Talk about a baptism in fire! But I was hooked.

Next semester, I took his writing workshop.

And the next semester I was at a different school because my money had run out. I met Barry a few more times after that — at book signings mostly, once when he was a visiting writer. The last time I saw him was at the Conference for the Book a few years ago. He recognized me. The last time I wrote to him was after the publication of my story "Harvest My Heart" at Pindeldyboz. http://www.pindeldyboz.com/jcheart.htm

I wrote to tell him how much he was in this story, how much he influenced it. It sounds silly, but I always wanted to live up to him, to be the writer he thought I could be. I don't know if I will ever reach that, it's still something I'm working toward.