William Styron once remarked that he wrote by hand because his mind didn’t move faster than his hand. Writing is physical. Writing that embodies characters, that lyrically inflects to express emotions and states of being, that offers images and sensations, that rhythmically creates time, that quickens the heart and mind of the reader, requires the focused presence of the whole person who puts the words on the page. The acceleration of modernity, from the typewriter to the word processor and now to digital media, potentially weakens the link between the body and soul of literature. So, as a visual reminder that handwriting has an eloquence of its own, from time to time we are presenting handwritten drafts and typed pages revised by hand by some of our authors.
