We were a bunch of innocents that day at The Ohio State University in 1979. Thirty or so of us, packed into an English Department classroom for class that would introduce us to the world of writing fiction. I think the course was called “Introduction to Writing Fiction” or something similar, but it was a long time ago and I do not recall such details 40-plus years and seven novels later. What I recall is being terrified. And I recall other, more important things. I remember the lessons imparted that day and in the weeks that followed. But the thing that sticks with me the most is the initial terror. That made an impression. I was a freshman at OSU, but some of my classmates that day were further along in their college educations. I think we were evenly split between men and women. What we all had in common was an interest in learning to become authors. Perhaps we all had dreams of writing best-sellers or stamping our legacies upon the world of literature. And there was one man in the room who seemed intent on stomping those dreams into dust. His name was Nicholas Guild, the instructor of…