How To Improve Your Writing.

Byline: INTERVIEWS BY BROOKE LE POER TRENCH AND DANIELLE PERGAMENT

Tips on hosting a poker party, improving your handwriting, saying you're sorry, and more.

An Interview With Barbara Getty and Inga Dubay

Getty and Dubay teach seminars and are the authors of Write Now: The Complete Program for Better Handwriting (Continuing Education Press/Portland State University) .

Penmanship is something of a lost art, but even in this electronic age, thank-you notes and other personal correspondence require a beautiful, handwritten letter. Think of your handwriting as a reflection of who you are; improving it is the equivalent of standing up straight or making sure your clothes fit you perfectly.

Get a grip. One of our commandments is "Thou shall not pinch the pen." When you've got the pen in a death grip, your handwriting tends to become smaller and harder to read. If you have a difficult time relaxing your fingers around the pen, change your grip. Instead of resting the back of the pen between your thumb and index finger, rest it in the space between your index and middle fingers. Then use your thumb and those two fingers to grip the tip of the pen. It feels odd at first, but it will alleviate a lot of strain and relax your hand and arm.

Lose the loops. The biggest problem with cursive writing is that it tends to get unnecessarily loopy and tangled up in itself. If ...