Alexandra Shelley is a teacher who has had a profound impact on my relationship to writing and the trajectory of my career.    She embodies precisely what any writer wishes for in a workshop leader: a generous spirit with a keen eye and incisive editorial skills.

She is also warm and witty and a pro at fostering a constructive environment in which each writer can individually flourish.

Since the beginning of my undergraduate career at Stanford University, I had been writing fiction and participating in writing workshops.   At Stanford I had the opportunity to work with an impressive caliber of writers… but the workshop in which I learned the most about my craft was Alexandra's. Her own prodigious skills as a writer, combined with her professional experience as a literary editor, offered unique insights into how to distill what is working in one's prose and eliminate what is not.

Setting the proper tone in a workshop takes dedication, talent and patience, all of which Alexandra possesses in abundance. Not only does she structure critique in a way that is generous and constructive, but her own criticisms are always thorough and illuminating. (My filing cabinet contains seven-year-old copies of my stories that Alexandra once marked up, because her observations are too keen to ever be relegated to the recycling bin.)

I credit much of my growth as a writer to Alexandra's workshop. We have remained in touch since that time, and she has continued to offer her brilliant insights, which have helped me to publish in numerous journals, including Other Voices and Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, as well as to win the 2005 Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers. I recently completed my first novel, which is currently on submission by my agent.

-Dalia Azim
Author, Country of Origin