Goodreads asked Eleanor Lerman:

What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Eleanor Lerman Read as much as you can. Reading is what teaches you to write. It never occurred to me that I could write anything until, when I was 17, purely by accident I came across a copy of "The Spice Box of Earth," one of Leonard Cohen's earliest books of poetry. I remember reading that little book as I rode home on a bus and by the time I got to my house, my life had been changed because I knew I had found what I wanted to do with my life: write poetry like he did. His work was the first time I had encountered poetry that was modern and approachable and written by someone of my own generation (well, not quite, but it seemed that way).

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