For more than fifteen years Rosemary Daniell has led Zona Rosa, a creative writing workshop for women [and now men], ranging in age from 16 to 90 and from all walks of life, in Savannah, Georgia. For a dozen years before that, she inspired kids - from reluctant high school jocks to barefoot fourth graders, in schools from Appalachia to a Mormon town in Wyoming - to write their own poems.

She also learned lessons in life and further developed her techniques while teaching writing in juvenile detention centers, a school for unwed mothers, the Georgia state mental hospital, and the Wyoming and Georgia state prisons for women.

Now Daniell, known for her stylish and controversial memoirs, Sleeping with Soldiers and Fatal Flowers, shares what she has discovered as a poet, nonfiction, and fiction author, and, more importantly, how she has learned to give hope to others who also wish to write. She explains the stumbling blocks one meets along the way - blocks that have more to do with obstacles from within, rather than with struggles to come up with ideas, or problems with transitions, syntax, and finding the right word.

Throughout, she suggests means to deal with these common experiences, from the Five Fears that can stifle the best of us, through the myriad varieties of Self-Sabotage, including the subtle Anna Quindlen syndrome. Whether you are a writer looking for a way to start, or have written for most of your life, you will find yourself in this book.