Writing, and teaching writing

There are a lot of excellent teachers of the craft and trade of writing out there, particularly in my genre, fantastic fiction. Many writer friends of mine teach writing, either occasionally, or as their main money-earning career. On Thursday and Friday I was up at Jeanne Cavelos's Odyssey Writing Workshop, in New Hampshire, where I was a guest speaker for a day.

I have always been reluctant to add that particular arrow to my professional quiver, for a few reasons. First is the fact that there...