It is often said there is an inherent contradiction between the revelatory aspect of the diary or journal and the artifices of craft and inspiration. This collection of private writing challenges that view.

Darkness and Light brings together substantial excerpts from the private writings of 14 sensitive and reflective women and men whose visions of themselves and their world express an authenticity through an active attention to form.

Meditations on a bus, on a lake; the personal meaning of literature or a painting; the painful and dramatic dissolution of a relationship; philosophical isolation from others; a poetic buoyancy in the face of the everyday; a distilled personal wisdom; the humor and sadness of the minutely mundane; the struggle to convey in dance an intimate trauma; a spiritual re-evaluation spurred by involvement in an alien culture; and a father and child's visit to a mother's grave.

These are some of the themes filling these pages torn from contemporary journals, diaries and notebooks. The editors are convinced that the domain of private literature can encompass much more than the typically historical or voyeuristic (to which most journal anthologies are devoted), and have faith that they are not alone in viewing the journal as an open testament to the full and mysterious variety of human life and thought.

Also included are two essays that address questions surrounding the journal as art.