Left-handed handwriting worthy of these nice pens

September 1, 2015 2:11 PM

Over the years, I've acquired a handful of very nice fountain pens, which I love to use. They are inspiring me to take a crack at improving my handwriting, which has never looked good or been particularly legible. I am left-handed, and I loathe Palmer script (cursive) with a fiery passion thanks to some awful shaming I received about my handwriting as a child. What are some good resources for a southpaw to improve his handwriting that don't involve the kind of cursive I was (not) taught as a child? Books, videos, websites are all welcome.
posted by gauche to Education (9 answers total)

You might try looking into italic handwriting, [note: NYT] which is a particularly attractive kind of printing that is very legible and also lends itself to the way most people in the 21st century actually write.
posted by The Elusive Architeuthis at 2:25 PM on September 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

Betty Edwards' "Drawing on the Right side of the Brain" ends with a chapter on handwriting. I think her idea is that it is all part of the same process of trying to be more skillful and thoughtful about the way we make marks on paper. If you have a fountain pen with water soluble ink, one with permanent ink and maybe something like this - then you have all you need to make some great pen and ink drawings by the way.
posted by rongorongo at 2:37 PM on September 1, 2015

i changed my writing completely during my first year of university. i just went with something simple that i dreamt up myself, but in retrospect i more or less followed what is shown in the elusive's NYT link. and - the reason i am posting - it was actually surprisingly easy to change. so i'd suggest doing that. also, my version doesn't slant, and (i think) looks ok, which is perhaps easier to do with the left hand.
posted by andrewcooke at 2:57 PM on September 1, 2015

My favorite resource for learning italic is http://briem.net/. The site organization is a bit quirky but it is filled with treasure.
posted by kprincehouse at 4:12 PM on September 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

I found the book Improve Your Handwriting, also on Italian handwriting, very helpful. (It has instructions for left-handers, though I'm a rightie so I can't say how good they are.)
posted by BrashTech at 5:44 PM on September 1, 2015

When I was a freshman in college, about 25 years ago, I took Russian and spent hours writing in Russian cursive. (I'm left-handed, too.) It changed the way I wrote--my handwriting is now long and slanted with some ornamental flourishes on the capitals--and I get a lot of compliments on it.

However, I tend to write with my left hand curled around the top of my paper/notebook so that it looks as if I'm writing upside-down. You may not find that a very desirable adaptation.
posted by tully_monster at 5:58 PM on September 1, 2015

I bought the Fix It Write workbook for my teenage stepdaughter. It teaches you to write in a very modern, clean style.
posted by Dragonness at 6:07 AM on September 2, 2015

Dexter Kozen's "On Teaching Left-handed Children to Write
posted by at at 9:47 AM on September 2, 2015

Another vote for italic - maybe have a look at the Getty and Dubay books. That one is for like 12 and older, and is the last in a series of workbooks for elementary-school-age kids, and there's an instruction manual that I liked a lot.

Ah. And after googling it, I found their website, and apparently they have a book just for adults now (Write Now, pdf of sample pages). I remember them addressing the needs/issues of lefties specifically.
posted by you must supply a verb at 11:01 AM on September 2, 2015