Mentors are extremely valuable in any career. Valuable and, in my experience, very hard to come by. In the arts, the people who could potentially be the most helpful are difficult to get to.
Fortunately for us, actress, playwright, and professor Anna Deavere Smith took the time to write Letters to a Young Artist: Straight-up Advice on Making a Living in the Arts – for Actors, Performers, Writers, and Artists of Every Kind. In short, one to three page chapters, Smith gives counsel for presence, jealousy, stage fright, and more. Her worldview is more “Eastern” than mine, but even so, she has great things to say and the experience to back it up.
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