**From one of America's great professors, author of Why Teach? and
Why Read?--an inspiring exploration of the importance of writing well,
for creators, educators, students, and anyone who writes.
Why write?
Why write when it sometimes feels that so few people really read--read
as if their lives might be changed by what they're reading? Why write,
when the world wants to be informed, not enlightened; to be entertained,
not inspired? Writing is backbreaking, mindbreaking, lonely work. So
why?
Because writing, as celebrated professor Mark Edmundson explains, is one
of the greatest human goods. Real writing can do what critic R. P.
Blackmur said it could: add to the stock of available reality. Writing
teaches us to think; it can bring our minds to birth. And once we're at
home with words, there are few more pleasurable human activities than
writing. Because this is something he believes everyone ought to know,
Edmundson offers us Why Write?, essential reading--both practical and
inspiring--for anyone who yearns to be a writer, anyone who simply needs
to know how to get an idea across, and anyone in between--in short,
everyone.