Guide Mentor

Character Role Analysis

Professor Piper

Part of Cath's coming-of-age journey is learning to step outside her comfort zone, stop (or at least curtail) writing fanfiction, and find her own voice. Professor Piper, a published novelist, gives Cath permission to take her junior-level Fiction-Writing course even though Cath's only a freshman.

She encourages Cath and praises her writing, but she's also the one who sits Cath down and gives it to her straight about fanfiction versus literature. Being a writer is always going to be a special kind of lonely, alienated hell (hey, we're just telling it like it is), but Professor Piper assures Cath that the fear and frustration are worth it—and that Cath is up for the challenge.