Famous Author

My freshman year in college I submitted a story to a visiting author, who admitted me to his graduate level writing course.  He admitted anyone who submitted anything.  Seven applied, seven were accepted.  He was well known in the literary world, but unknown to me.  I was invited to an interview with the author, in his cluttered, windowless basement office, where I found him chain-smoking, unshaven and un-groomed. He told me he had read a little of my story, and I was admitted to his class, but said, "I can't teach you to write. You've either got it, or you don't. You could go out and sit under a tree and learn to write just as easily as in a classroom. So here's the deal: You leave me alone so I can write, and I leave you alone to write, and I'll give you an A or a B. Deal?" I took the deal. I spent the semester writing and skipping his class. So did he. At the end of the semester I got an A. The other students got B's because they went to his office seeking his guidance. Ten years later, the visiting author, who taught me nothing, won the Pulitzer Prize for literature. Five years after that I found his book in a thrift shop. I paid two dollars for it. It was acclaimed as brilliant, but I found it unbearable.  I still write, but mostly I just sit under a tree.