Carolyn Heilbrun famously observed that women of the early 20th century had no models fortheir public lives, no way to learn the “tone of voice in which to speak with authority.”One is reminded of Jean Elshtain's classic study of the tyranny of gender stereotyping as“public” men and “private” women (Elshtain 1981). The mentoring project at APSA invites us,men and women together, to break down the unspoken barrier between our personal stories andour professional persona. As Heilbrun said, we can't be authentic mentors if we don't “tellthe truth about (our) own lives” (Heilbrun [1988] 2002, 25). The trouble is that facts aremute. “Facts need testimony to be remembered,” articulate witnesses with sufficientimagination to make the experiences of modern life understandable (Arendt [1969] 1972, 6).Yet to be useful, as well as authentic, imagination must at least attempt to be truthful.Accordingly, please indulge me while I commit an act of public disclosure and do what mymother always said a lady should never do—talk about herself. Doing so is bad manners and,besides, no one really wants to hear it, she said. I plead guilty to the former, but aboutthe latter I have my doubts. Mentoring in political science is based on the premise thatother people need to see reflections of their own careers and lives in yours and vice versa.So at least in this specific context, self-referential writing, the dreaded pronoun “I” maybe forgiven.