The individuals involved in the making of a writer cannot always be clearly discerned. In the case of novelist, short story writer, and poet George Garrett, however, they stand out as clearly as the Elizabethan England he restored to life in his novels Death of the Fox and The Succession—his family, his father, and two coaches, one in track and football, the other in boxing, and each having only one eye. "My Two One-Eyed Coaches" was written in a somewhat longer version for a book called An Apple for My Teacher, which Algonquin Books will be publishing this year. Mr. Garrett is currently on leave from the University of Virginia, where he is the Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing. The prolific Mr. Garrett has published six novels, a collection of short novels, five collections of stories, seven books of poems, and a respectable body of critical work, including a recent biography of James Jones. His most recent novel, Poison Pen, is an acidly satirical examination of the American literary scene, which has provoked both howls and hurrahs from authors and critics.