Drury,

As one of the "writers" in these little assemblage of hardies, but also as a writing teacher, I want to join John in lending my professional imprimatur regarding the value of Archipelago in improving one's writing.

I have suggested in more than one voice card how useful are the sort of informal, spur-of-the-moment, free-writing responses that most of these voice cards seem to be. When I teach writing at the Unversity level, I argue to my students that the most helpful things they can to do improve their writing skills are exactly just these sort of habitual, informal, free-written type of assignments. The benefits will spill over into whatever writing situation they find themselves - letters, official academic papers, memos at work, business reports, whatever.

Likewise with us. The more I witness this wonderful Archipelago enterprise at work, the more I am convinced that engaging in the process of responding to these voice cards will most surely lead to an improvement in writing skills (In fact, I think that if Archipelago is ever to be marketed to a general audience, I think this would be one of its most valuable [i.e., marketable] aspects).

So take heart, sweet Drury, the best is yet to come.