I had an elderly uncle, Al, who took great pride in introducing me to the staff members who cared for him at the Somers Manor Nursing Home where he spent the last year or so of his life as, "My nephew, he is a school teacher." I in turn always took great pride in being introduced that way. It was far better than being recognized as the "voice on the radio" during my days as a disc jockey and newscaster or having someone comment on a publication that had appeared in a magazine or newspaper.

While it is always validating to have something accepted for publication, I consider myself first and foremost a teacher. Every writer I have ever read has at some level become a teacher to me. When I was an undergraduate at Columbia University, if you were not pre-med, or at least pre-law, you might have well have introduced yourself as "pre-death" and how dare you take up a spot in an Ivy League class if your ultimate goal was not to climb to the top of one of the "elite" professions.

As I move through life and acquire new experiences in and out of the classroom I find that I have things to say. I find also that from time to time, people like what they hear. Putting some of these things down on paper has been a big step. Do I for example have as much to say as the voices that have inspired me: Kenneth Koch, Bob Greene, Anna Quindlen, Mike Lupica, Pete Hamill, and all the rest?

Growing older has helped me realize how much certain periods, people, and places in my life meant to me. I also realized how much of it was slipping away, perhaps for good. I realized that as a writer, or the one I had hoped to become, I could not only capture "now" but could also bring back a lot of "then." Had I known earlier how much I would value the past I would have done more to preserve it. As I found more successes as a poet, journalist, and essayist, I realized that the past was all still inside of me somewhere. The possibility of helping others to realize the same was appealing. As a teacher I have that chance.

There are shelves and shelves of books about writing, including textbook after textbook about grammar and usage. Many focus on the technical aspect, the how to publish aspect, the different genres. What about one for the person I was? Someone who wanted to be a writer but did not know what a writer did, thought about, went about his craft?

My goal with this book is to share some of what I have found to be helpful in my workshops and classes. There, I tend to be very relaxed as far as curriculum, letting things take whatever direction seems to work. We write together, share, and shape things. Some of our pieces reach final form while others do not. The same happened in the writing of this book. I started with some main themes and areas I wanted to visit. Some new, some based on pieces previously published. Some of my columns and articles seemed to exemplify what I was aiming for in various sections so are included. Other times I was reminded of things I had written but never done anything else with. Where these random musings seemed to fit, where they might have been things I would share in a workshop to make a point, they appear here in the same unfinished form I would have shared with my students in those settings. I have also included a brief writing prompt at the end of each section that I hope will be useful. Try them, change them, and see where they take you.