There is a series of posts on Threads that is taking off from author J.M. Frey, who describes a tale known as her “villain origin story,” which is about an absolutely monstrous English teacher. You can read the Thread here or below.

I have never had a teacher so awful. In fact, the majority of teachers in my life have been incredibly supportive of my writing…save one. My theater professor, BK.

I had been a playwright for years while I was in public school. I started writing shows at age 12, wrote again at 13, and again at 17. Every show I wrote was a full-length, major production, and every single one of them was performed by the school. I considered myself really, really lucky and blessed to have such support.

I wanted to keep writing plays in college. I didn’t major in theater, but English, though I participated in a lot of shows as an actor and also took a playwriting class taught by BK.

I only wrote so-so in the class because a lot of writing prompts we were given never appealed to me. But BK found out that I had written a full length play, and he asked to see it. I gave the script to him. By then it had been copyrighted by the Library of Congress and I was preparing to submit it to publishers. This was the play I wrote when I was 17, In the Hands of Mr. Hyde.

I was thrilled BK wanted to look at it. And he showed the script off in class, and it was covered in post-it notes. It was clear he looked through it thoroughly, and I was thankful. When I got the script back, it was mostly filled with grammatical errors he caught, some phrasing issues, etc.–nothing about plot, characterization, etc. Just small stuff that an editor or proofreader would catch.

We had a meeting in his office and he said, “Well, you’re a better writer than Tim Kelly,” but he said it in a weird tone of voice. I thought he was complimenting me, and I asked, “Who is that?” and he dismissed the question. Later I found out Tim Kelly was considered a hack writer who published hundreds of adaptations of literary classics for the stage, pumping them out as quickly as a factory worker.

Basically BK told me the equivalent of, “You’re a better writer than E.L. James,” or insert any other writer’s name of someone considered to be terrible but wildly successful. I didn’t realize he was passive aggressively shooting me down until after I had looked into Tim Kelly some more (although, if you look at this profile, Tim Kelly is highly lauded).

Anyway, BK continued to drop some more bombs that were far more obviously discouraging me from pursuing my publication dream. He said there were too many characters. He said that the play wasn’t good enough to be published. He said the play took the joy away from actors.

I sat there and listened to him silently, and didn’t protest. When he was done knocking my work down, I just got up and left. I was angry, but moreover, my heart was broken. He didn’t even want me to try.

He also shot down any chance of me writing plays for the college. I had come up with an idea about setting a play in a mental asylum after watching the amazing The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade (better known as Marat/Sade) by Peter Weiss. I didn’t have a full plot in my head yet, but I mentioned that I wanted to write a play for my college.

BK immediately pooh-pooed it. He made excuses: “You’d have to enroll in a course and take it as an independent study, and I don’t have the time for that”…even though my fellow students had their plays put on without having to specially enroll in a course.

He was a dick to me when I was in his productions, too, and when I shared my struggle with my bipolar diagnosis with him…but this post is how he treated me as a writer.

I had never been so repeatedly shot down before.

When I graduated, I was determined to keep writing shows. My “mental asylum” idea became an original full-length musical, Melancholia, and then the year after that, I rewrote In the Hands of Mr. Hyde for older, college-aged and adult audiences. The only advice I took from BK was cutting down the number of characters, but otherwise I kept the bones of my high-school version (though I made the play much darker). Both shows, Melancholia and In the Hands of Mr. Hyde, were performed and produced by The Ohio State University Mansfield under the guidance of Dr. Joseph Fahey, another supportive professor who let my work really shine.

After that, I decided I wanted to go to school for theatre. I applied to NYU’s Graduate Musical Theater Writing MFA program. I wanted to apply as a composer because I thought my music for Melancholia was brilliant, but backed out and switched to lyricist when the application was beyond my abilities. Nonetheless, on the strength of my portfolio, I was chosen to fly out to New York City and participate in the applicant’s weekend, where we had to write a song and scene on the spot. Unfortunately I didn’t spend enough time with my assigned partner and spent more time with my family, who I hadn’t seen in a while, so I didn’t do as good performing our song as I should’ve, and I believe that cost me admission to the program. I was waitlisted–so, a contingent acceptance. While I asked to be removed from the waitlist, I realized that my writing was really good. My experience with NYU completely validated me.

I did a 180 though and switched to getting an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction. I did well in graduate school, and after grad school (though it took several years), I got a literary agent and published my first standalone novel in 2024. Then my publisher signed me to a three-book deal, the trilogy known as The Darkening Gate.

I have proven again and again that I am a writer who is good enough. And as much as I wanted to brag about this to BK, who always doubted my abilities as a writer, he died before any of this could happen.

As much as I would have loved to been like “Look at me, I did it, and I did it without you,” I don’t have the chance to do that. In my memory he will always remain an asshole who put his own writing before his students’ and repeatedly shot my work down or blocked me from writing altogether. I have done tremendous things without him, and I have proven him wrong. And that’s enough for me.

As an endnote, I know that students who want to write really take what their English teachers say to heart. Students have long memories. I always try to be complimentary to students when they do good work or have shown great potential, and if any of them wanted to go into creative writing for a living and get their work published, I wouldn’t shoot them down. It’s not my place to say whether or not a work will get published–it’s the publisher who decides. I can say that something might need more work before sending it off, but I would never discourage a writer from sending out their work, period.

Not only has BK taught me to rise above him, but also he’s helped me decide what kind of teacher I should be. So I guess, after all that, I should have a little bit of gratitude, too.