In the fall of 1989, during the second year of my MFA program in creative nonfiction, Lesley Hazleton swept onto campus as a visiting writer. A whirlwind of energy, Lesley was a self-described “agnostic Jew” schooled by Catholic nuns, a psychologist turned journalist who had lived in the desert, driven over land mines, and traveled the world.

She blew my mind.

I had recently left a five-year career in the Merchant Marine to return to college, so I was an adventurist too. But until Lesley, all my writing teachers had been men. She was my first and only female writing teacher in grad school, a fact I find shocking today.

Lesley became a mentor and lifelong friend, but she was my teacher first. The most important thing she taught me was how to strip away the husk of hurt that keeps us from telling the hardest stories. I struggled with discovering my father’s pedophilia during her class and wouldn’t have been able to go through that journey without her guidance and support.

I am forever grateful to professor Christopher Clausen, then head of Penn State’s English department, for bringing Lesley to campus from 1989 to ’93. His decision to invite this unconventional, brilliant woman to teach aspiring writers like me had a profound impact on my life and career.

Lesley both discouraged us from becoming writers, citing the low average earnings, and encouraged us to dive into the complexity of story, the limits of human experience, and the beauty and heartbreak of language. She pushed us to take risks in our writing and in our lives.

Over the years, Lesley and I stayed connected; she continued to inspire me with her fearless approach to life and work. From exploring fast cars and learning to fly to writing biographies of Muhammad, Mary, and Jezebel, she never stopped seeking out new adventures and challenging herself.

In 2023, I visited Lesley in Seattle, where she shared that she had terminal cancer and had chosen to die on her own terms, thanks to Washington state’s Death With Dignity Act. In her final days—she died in April 2024—she exemplified the curiosity, courage, and zest for life that made her an extraordinary human, mentor, and friend.

In her last TED Talk, “What’s Wrong With Dying?,” she joked about some people being terrified of death, but cocktail parties terrify her … because after a few drinks she will say anything to anyone, as she did with a young man who assumed she was afraid to die.

“We need to die. … Our mortality is a defining part of what it is to be human,” she said. “We are finite beings within infinity. And if we are alive to this, it sharpens our appreciation of the fact that we exist, gives new depth to the idea of life as a journey. So, my mortality does not negate meaning. It creates meaning.”

That meaning is a gift to all who knew and loved her.  

Gigi Marino, a poet and essayist, works as a college admissions counselor. She is based in Orlando, Fla.