Onetime Greenwich Village bohemian and longtime Minnesotan Brenda Ueland published one of the great writing manuals in 1938. Unfortunately, very few people read If You Want to Write; after all, that was a time when the profession was seen as far harder to break into then it is today.

The people of 1938 were missing out:

Everybody is talented because everybody who is human has something to express. Try not expressing any thing for twenty-four hours and see what happens. You will nearly burst…