straight lines across the white page, turn first into words you can understand and then into magical images and events. though certain stories seem to have nothing to do with real life - though they melt into surprises of all kinds, and stretch possibility this way and that as if it were a rubber band, in the end good stories bring us back to ourselves. they are made up of words, and all human beings are anxious to have adventures with words.
most of us begin as listeners. when we are babies our mothers and fathers play with us, reciting rhymes, touching our toes, (this little pig went to market) or 