"'How to Write' is the 'difficult' Stein at her best -- and often most difficult pieces are the most delightful. Stein was not difficult for her own sake. Her work was as it was because her intentions could not be realized in normal prose. She was no hermetic. But in her best-known self-explanations - Narration, Composition as Explanation, An Elucidation, An Acquaintance with Description and Lectures in America - she gives in the temptation, to work within the confines of 'straight,' traditional prose, and to repudiate her own most characteristic style..." -- from book's back cover.