en emerge after the writer contacts a resonant event. Is it important that the event actually took place? Not so very. What Every book was once a mere snippet of a notion with a pencil (or a computer keyboard) dangling off the end of it. The difference between an author and someone daydreaming out the window is that, finding the pencil or keyboard attached to a notion, the writer continues drawing, writing, pulling, prodding, and scratching at the notion until it becomes a book. But how does that book become wonderful? There lies the real mystery. No one really knows. . . but I have observed that Wonderful Books often emerge after the writer contacts a resonant event. Is it important that the event actually took place? Not so very. What Ience between an author and someone daydreaming out the window is that, finding the pencil or keyboard attached to a notion, the writer continues drawing, writing, pulling, prodding, and scratching at the notion until it becomes a book. But how does that book become wonderful? There lies the real mystery. No one really knows. . . but I have observed that Wonderful Books often emerge after the writer contacts a resonant event. Is it important that the event actually took place? Not so very. What he writer continues drawing, writing, pulling, prodding, and scratching at the notion until it becomes a book. But how does that book become wonderful? There lies the real mystery. No one really knows. . . but I have observed that Wonderful Books often emerge after the writer contacts a resonant event. Is it important that the event actually took place? Not so very. What hat book become wonderful? There lies the real mystery. No one really knows. . . but I have observed that Wonderful Books often emerge after the writer contacts a resonant event. Is it important that the event actually took place? Not so very. What en emerge after the writer contacts a resonant event. Is it important that the event actually took place? Not so very. What Is Important is that the event (whether remembered or imagined) spontaneously emits for the writer the qualities of wonder and delight. The late poet Donald Justice wrote a brilliant biographical essay in which he recounts a childhood memory of a party where he encountered – wonder of wonders! – a plate of small sandwiches. The way he describes closing his hands around one of them would not be nearly so satisfying and evocative if he had not – as he did so well – first tell us that those little