James Harbeck been a professional editor for 20 years and a (paid!) writer for longer than that, and he's observed a few things over those years that writers will benefit from knowing. So here are his 12 gifts for writers. These gifts are not rules-no no no no no. I don't care if you want rules. The only real rule in writing is "Write stuff your readers will be glad they've read." (Well, there's also "Don't be a jerk," but that's more of a rule of life.) Everything else is commentary. And so are these: insights, suggestions, ungentle nudges. But you'll be glad you read them.

Words are delicious and intoxicating sometimes a bit too much so. As with other intoxicants, if you take them in excess you may end up getting carried away. Indulge in these eighty-nine tales of wordly wantonness with the members of the Order of Logogustation and other lexical reprobates from Sesquiotica by James Harbeck, master word taster and sentence sommelier. All characters and events described here are fictitious but all the linguistic and historical facts are absolutely true. (No words were harmed in the making of this book.)

"I met a buxom grammatician / and said I'd like her out to take; / back she came with proposition: / in let's stay and out let's make..." Who can look at punctuation mark or idiom and not think of romantic frustration? Clearly, what the world needs most is flippant poems that combine points of English grammar with a salacious sensibility. And here it is: Songs of Love and Grammar, some five-dozen-odd poems on romantic and grammatical entanglements. Is it reference? Is it poetry? Well, yes, but above all, it's funny.