Alexandra Shelley is the finest teacher I know. I would gladly erect a bronze statue in her honor, but where she really shines is in the classroom, with students…. I met Alexandra eight years ago, when  I attended her ''Great Short Story'' class at the New School. It was the first such class I had taken in a long while, as I'd been occupied with raising children and making a living….

I was a rube in that class, terrified of the notorious workshop format and unfamiliar with such terms as ''scene'' and ''plot." But Alexandra's teaching blends challenge and erudition with enthusiasm, support and accessibility, and at the end of the term I am proud to say I had written a couple of quite decent stories and begun to think of myself as a writer.

In reflecting on the Great Short Story class today, I am struck not only by Alexandra's grace and skill in working with me, but in how she handled a very diverse group ranging perhaps 50 years in age and at least that much in life experience. Of this group she crafted a true workshop, where each of us dared to expose our work to scrutiny and learned how to evaluate writing in positive, constructive and (to borrow a word from another universe) actionable ways.

Since then, I've had the privilege of working with Alexandra privately and in workshop settings. She is, without a doubt, the single greatest influence on my development as a writer and the standard by which I measure other teachers.

In the span of eight years, she has offered me more than the equivalent of a graduate program in writing, with increasingly challenging assignments, extraordinary curricula, and a network of first-rate writers I can now consider colleagues--for with Alexandra's guidance and support, I have published four stories, written more than three dozen and begun the process of finding an agent. 

-Jane Palmer