A collection of essays related to writing - either Walker's own, or that of the authors she admires (like Zora Neale Hurston, for instance). Inextricably linked with her own creative experience is Walker's identity as a black woman, and she writes a lot about how her race and gender have impacted - and continue to impact - her role as author. There's a wide range of approaches here; everything from juggling motherhood and writing, to tracking down Hurston's grave in an overgrown cemetery, to navigating the unhappy expectation that black women's interests should be subordinate to the interests of black men. Always the essays are compulsively readable, and Walker's continuing emphasis on (and growing awareness of) the influence her mother's stories have had on her own development as a writer is the thread that ties the collection together. It's so thoughtful and so interesting and genuinely illuminating... well worth reading.