How to write an essay: You’re drifting off and a thought pops in; and it sounds like a lead sentence so you jot it on the pad you keep under the bed. You look for sleep, but it tugs at your ear, till you finally give in and brainstorm the idea for all it’s worth — the gems and the junk alike. Come daylight, you mentally solve syntactical problems — while folding laundry, molding meatballs, conversing with your neighbor.

Then you sit in front of a white page, terrified. . . .

Isn’t that the way? Andrée has a new book, We Shall Have Spring Again.