This book peeks inside the writerly testing grounds of Sue Grafton, Kim Stafford, Maureen Stanton, and others. This collection of essays by well-established professional writers explores how their notebooks serve as their studios and workshops - places to collect, to play, and to make new discoveries with language, passions, and curiosities. For these diverse writers, the journal also serves as an ideal forum to develop their writing voice, whether crafting fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. Some entries include sample journal entries that have since developed into published pieces. Through their individual approaches to keeping a notebook, the contributors offer valuable advice, personal recollections, and a hardy endorsement of the value of using notebooks to document, develop, and nurture a writer's creative spark. Designed for writers of all genres and all levels of experience, ""Writers and Their Notebooks"" celebrates the notebook as a vital tool in a writer's personal and literary life.