Egyptian hieroglyphs, Persian cuneiform, Chinese, Mayan, Korean, Cherokee, are all distinctly invented forms of writing.

And the amazing alphabet simplified the process. The invention of writing 5,000 years ago may be more important than the wheel.

What, why, and how writers write - using clay, stone, papyrus, paper, stylus, reed, pen, the Gutenberg press, the typewriter, stenotype, linotype, laptop… Writers living and dead- From Gilgamesh to Lincoln, Elmore Leonard, Quincy Troupe, Robert Frost. Prose and poetry, fiction and non-fiction, fortune cookies, epics, blogs. And everyone can use an editor, almost.

Clay school tablets in Sumer, Egyptian scribes, Irish monks…

Democracy brings the goal of universal literacy. From the one-room schoolhouse to today’s overcrowded, multi-cultural public schools, learning to read and write has never been easy. The blessings and burdens of literacy.