“It’s such a shame that they don’t even teach kids cursive in school anymore…”

…is the first thing that most people say to me when they find out what I do for a living. Ironically, I don’t have a strong opinion about kids learning cursive. I learned most of what I know about penmanship in my early 20’s.

When I was in middle school, we were told that high school teachers wouldn’t even accept papers that weren’t written in cursive. This was a lie. All through my young adult life, handwriting became less and less important. Eventually, it served only as the way that I filled out forms at the doctor’s office or signed my credit card receipts.

One day, I decided that it was something I really wanted to improve about myself. Up to that point, I’d just resolved myself to have bad handwriting. In some ways, I didn’t believe that I was capable of anything else, but now I know I just didn’t have the right spark of interest. This article aims to provide that spark of interest if you are wondering how to improve your handwriting as an adult.

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Over the last ten years, I’ve written with oblique holders from many different penmakers. I’ve taken the opportunity to ask to try the holders belonging to students in my workshops. I’ve even made several myself. One thing that I know for certain is:

A good holder is one that is well adjusted for its owner.

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Gretchen Caldwell is a mother, biochemist, paramedic, dog-trainer, and Dreaming In Script Merit Alum. Over the last six months, We’ve watched Gretchen struggle and grow with a number of different projects and skills as she has progressed into quite the penman! We’re proud to present a student feature about her progress and thoughts on her calligraphic journey and hope that it inspires and encourages those of you working on developing your own skill. Gretchen is a generous, humble, and enthusiastic friend and we feel very fortunate to call her one of our hardest-working students.

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