classes where, with early encouragement, writers soon found a “voice.” The book took form as I discovered how that was happening. I was determined to help bring these writers to full voice. First, they had to find a personally invested subject. So I asked them to keep a journal/notebook of their own, and to write down whatever came to mind with feeling, just that: memories of recent or past happenings, random thoughts—and images of any sort, including imaginations and dreams. What came with feeling came with voice—raw, refined, soulful, sarcastic, ironic, insightful—and true. The pleasure of voice led naturally to the pleasure of detailed description, which led to dramatic monologues, dialogues, sketches, narratives, and reflections. Exploring these descriptions for meaning led to the pleasure (sometimes pain) of discovery, and of developing meaning further with memoirs and personal essays. I structured the book using this sequence—voice to personal essay, which had developed naturally. And added a chapter on modern style. As they wrote, these writers found a natural—modern—style of their own that cleared a path for detailed description, narration, and for thinking things through. Some of the best of these writings profusely illustrate this book. Chapter 8 explores modern style, the cumulative sentence in particular, a style developed by outstanding writers of the past 100 years, among them, Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Eudora Welty, and Rachel Carson. Though this is a book about writing, it “doesn’t just focus on grammar and style,” but “actually tells people how to go about writing,” as one reviewer wrote. In all her years as a book publisher, she wishes that she had known about this book in order to “recommend it to the zillions of folks who wanted me to tell them how to write.”

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