I am a writer, and words are my tools and my inspiration, my craft and my medium. Still, I do not always know what it is that I think about an issue or a person or a value until I am pressed to speak, and must pause and try to put those ideas into language. Oh, I have a sense about my beliefs and feelings—I have an awareness of what matters to me and how I feel about what matters to others. But it is not until I am forced to transmute those ephemeral wisps of thought into concrete, specific, vivid, precise language that I truly come to know myself and understand what it is that I want to say … Read More