The speaker affirmed that indeed she was. By sheer chance I'd called my new English Department colleague Susan Poznar, whose office is one door down from my own. But those who know us best don't need an elaborate machine for the task. Even written speech captures something of our human voice. That's why some of us prefer e-mail from friends to phone calls.
Conversation seems sloppy and haphazard compared to writing.
The time and care that goes into composing words and sentences gives them more subtlety and weight. In the black and white of print, the flowing loops and swirls of handwriting, or the shimmering pixels of computer screens, our words seem to bear more freight of meaning. The voices of Faulkner and Hemingway are so distinctive that national contests award annual prizes to the writers who can best imitate them. Any young writer can attest to how a great writer's voice can take over and possess the beginner, speaking through their typed sentences like a ventriloquist through a dummy. This issue of Zephyr is dedicated to the voices of our English graduates.