Dear Pussycat: Some of us find it easier to say in a letter whatever it is we want to express -- love, rage, outrage, affection, resentment, enthusiasm, a request to do a chore -- than we do person to person or even phone to phone. I've been writing letters, somewhat successfully I think, since I was eight years old. I got President Franklin Roosevelt to write to my wheelchair-bound (from polio) sister by dropping him a line at the White House. Some...

"Helen Gurley Brown is the original Cosmo girl: a savvy, attractive woman with a clear idea of what she wants and the confidence she'll get it. In her decades as a publishing superstar, she has assigned and edited thousands of pieces by writers of all kinds. She gave them all the same straightforward advice - and now she shares it with everyone who wants to write clear, effective, colorful, memorable prose. Breezy, witty, and friendly, The Writer's...