More than 20 years before I got up the courage to send an open letter to the New York Times accusing my former English teacher Blake Bailey of grooming his eighth grade students and then, years later, coercing us into sex or, in my case, just holding me down and doing it even while I cried “no” and “stop” repeatedly I sent a very different letter on his behalf.
I wrote his nomination for the Louisiana Humanities Teacher of the Year in 2000, an award he went on to win.
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I described how he gave me the language to discuss poetry and literature, how he insisted that his students all be not just well-read but also culturally literate, how he affirmed my love of writing and mentored me for years. I recalled how I’d dutifully read