Ayn Rand: My Fiction-Writing Teacher

by Erika Holzer

I couldn't have had a better learning experience than if I'd taken any number of conventional writing courses or gotten a couple ofadvanced degrees. To my knowledge, I am the only one who had the unprecedented experience of learning to write fiction at Ayn Rand's knee and subsequentlygoing on to become a published novelist.This book is a superb guide to would-be fiction writers--a text, as it were,for creative writing.What kind of fiction-writing teacher was Ayn Rand? In a word, inspired. Herenthusiasm, her gift for imparting the knowledge and skills she's painstakinglyacquired, her unstinting patience in explaining a single point or an entiremethodology, the generosity with which, time and time again, she guided me fromerror to enlightenment--these are the marks of a person who was a born teacher.

Genres: Writing

304 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 15, 2005

About the author

Erika Holzer received her B.S. from Cornell University and her law degree from New York University.

For several years following her admission to the New York bar, she practiced constitutional and appellate law with Henry Mark Holzer. Their clients included Soviet dissidents and defectors, and other lawyers for whom they prepared appellate briefs and Petitions for Certiorari for the Supreme Court of the United States.

One of the Holzer firm’s clients (and later friend) was the novelist, Ayn Rand. Because of Rand’s literary influence, Erika Holzer switched careers from law to writing.

With Henry Mark Holzer, she co-authored “Aid and Comfort”: Jane Fonda in North Vietnam, proving that Jane Fonda’s trip to Hanoi during the Vietnam War, and her activities there, constituted constitutional treason.

Again with Henry Mark Holzer, Erika co-authored Fake Warriors: Identifying, Exposing, and Punishing Those Who Falsify Their Military Service.

Her other non-fiction writing consists of essays, articles, reviews, political and legal commentary.

In addition, Erika is author of the book Ayn Rand: My Fiction-Writing Teacher: A novelist’s mentor-protégé relationship with the author of Atlas Shrugged.