Jeanne Marie Laskas, Distinguished Professor of English in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences and founding director of Pitt’s Center for Creativity, published an essay in The New York Times Magazine on her friendship with Fred Rogers.

Laskas first met Rogers after finishing graduate school and remained friends with him until his death in 2003.

“Fred Rogers’ philosophy guided me to teach in the way that I do now. He gave me the confidence to become a writer,” said Laskas, a New York Times best-selling author of eight books.

During Pitt’s Year of Creativity, Laskas said we can all learn a lot from Fred Rogers. “Fred believed that the creative process was a fundamental function at the core of every human being,” Laskas wrote in her essay.

Her essay appeared in The New York Times Magazine, on shelves Nov. 24. In addition to serving as a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, Laskas is also a correspondent at GQ. Her bylines have also appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic and Esquire.