From overcoming illegible penmanship to mastering the challenge of keeping straight margins, avoiding smeared ink, and choosing stationery that is appropriate but suits your style, this is a powerful little guide to conveying thoughts in an enduring-and noteworthy-way.

For those who enjoy writing notes, or those who value doing so but find themselves intimidated by the task, acclaimed calligrapher Margaret Shepherd has created both an epistolary tribute and rescue manual. Just as you cherish receiving personal mail, you can take pleasure in crafting correspondence. Love, gratitude, condolences, congratulations-for every emotion and occasion, a snippet of heartfelt prose is included, sure to loosen the most stymied letter writer.

Margaret Shepherd is a noted calligrapher and author whose clients include numerous headliners. The author of thousands of personal notes and thirteen instructional books on calligraphy, including the bestselling Learning Calligraphy and the just published Learn Calligraphy (Broadway Books, 2001), she has exhibited her work in many museums and galleries. She lives in Boston.