Word by word

Anne Lamott, a peerless inspirer of good writing, tells the story of her brother, age 10, agonizing over his science report on birds. “He’d had three months to write [it]. It was due the next day,” she explains. “He was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat