See Video Advice To writers


I love words. I love to write. I find the mere act of writing relaxes and restores me, and everything falls into harmony merely by  taking time to write.  Perhaps that’s why I like to teach writing too:  I want to spread the good news! 

I believe that the music of words, the sentence rhythms themselves, should reflect the meaning of the content so that  not only are you offering information but an emotional overtone or memory that lingers after the book is closed. 

But sometimes all you want is to be clear. All you want is for the writing  to flow so effortlessly that a 12-year-old can’t put it down. And that takes work!

     Sophy Burnham's Studio

This is one of two desks I have, but I work anywhere.  Sometimes I use the dining room table or else I stand at the granite kitchen counter  -- because I like to work standing up.  Sometimes I lie on my back on a sofa.  I usually write by hand on yellow legal pads or else on various scraps of paper, even the backs of envelopes, and later work on the computer.

The picture to the left of the desk is a drawing by the French artist J. L. Forain commissioned for a story, “Les Plaisirs et Les Jours,” by Marcel Proust.  The book was rejected by Gallimard publishers (to their later sorrow) and published without illustrations by another publisher.  I like it not only for the elegant drawing but also to remind myself that even an immortal like Proust was rejected.

The picture over the desk (which you can’t see very well) is “My Study” by the New Mexico artist Inga Jerby.