. - john cheever was a professor of yours. - john cheever, john irving, and vance bourjaily, who had been john irving's teacher in the workshop. - it's like the very best possible people you could learn from, right? - yes, evan, but as you know, when you're an artist, whether it's in music, or in the literary arts, or painting, you already know how to do it. what you need is a guide or coach to say, alright, kid, you're on the right track, which is essentially what all three did for me, very generously. but really, no one can teach you how to do it. no one really offered suggestions, they just read it and encouraged me. - you've gotten better over time in your own mind, right? the t. c. boyle of those days in iowa, who thought he knew a lot and thought he could do a lot, learned over time what more he could do and what was right and wrong with his work. - i think you grow. you grow as an artist if you're lucky. and i have no restrictions, i write in any mode that occurs to me. i think that allows me to be very productive. when i first began writing, in my first collection of stories,