This book captures the diversity and richness of writing as it relates to different forms of abilities, skills, competencies, and expertise. Psychologists, educators, researchers, and practitioners in neighboring areas are interested in exploring how writing develops and in what manner this development can be fostered, but they lack a handy, unified, and comprehensive source of information to satisfy their interest. The goal of this book is to fill this void by reflecting on the phenomenon of writing from a developmental perspective. It contains an integrated set of chapters devoted to issues of writing: how writing develops, how it is and should be taught and how writing paths of development differ across writing genres. Specifically, the book addresses typologies of writing; pathways of the development of writing skills; stages of the development of writing; individual differences in the acquisition of writing skills; writing ability and disability; teaching writing; and the development and demonstration of expertise in writing. This book is divided into eight parts. Part I, The Origins of Writing, contains the following: (1) Tokens As Precursors of Writing (D. Schmandt-Besserat); (2) The Cultural Evolution of Written Language and Its Effects: A Darwinian Process from Prehistory to The Modern Day (A. Lock and M. Gers); and (3) Language, Literacy and Mind: The Literacy Hypothesis (D. Olson). Part II, Writing and Human Development, contains the following: (4) What Writing Is and How It Changes Across Early and Middle Childhood Development: A Multi-Disciplinary Perspective (V. W. Berninger, L. Chanqouy); and (5) The Writing Brain of Normal Child Writers and Children with Writing Disabilities: Generating Ideas and Transcribing Them through the Orthographic Loop (T. L. Richards, V. W. Berninger, M. Fayol). Part III, Working Memory and Expertise in Writing, contains the following: (6) The Development of Writing Expertise (R. T. Kellogg, A. P. Whiteford); (7) Writing and Working Memory: A Summary of Theories and Findings (T. Olive); (8) Towards a Dynamic Approach of How Children (M. Fayol, J. Foulin, S. Maggio, B. Lete); and (9) Descriptive Writing (D. L. Coker, Jr.). Part IV, The Teaching of Writing, contains the following: (10) Creative Writing as Assessment of Content (J. Randi, T. Newman, L. Jarvin); (11) Improving the Writing Skills of College Students (C. R. Fallahi); and (12) Second Language Writing Processes Among Adolescent and Adult Learners (J. S. Hedgcock). Part V, Creativity and Emotions in Writing, contains the following: (13) Themes in the Lives of Creative Writers (J. Piirto); (14) The Creative Writer and Mental Health: The importance of domains and style (J. C. Kaufman, J. D. Sexton, A. E. White); (15) Seeing, Connecting, Writing: Developing Creativity and Narrative Writing in Children (M. Tan, J. Randi, B. Barbot, C. Levenson, L. Friedlaender, E. L. Grigorenko); and (16) The Role of Affect in Students' Writing for School (P. Smagorinsky, E. A. Daigle). Part VI, Disorder of Written Language: Diagnostic Criteria, Prevalence, and Biological Bases, contains the following: (17) Neuropsychology of Writing (A. Ardila); (18) Written Expression's Neuropsychological Nexus (WENN): A Working Clinical Theory (E. Mambrino); (19) The Effect of Language and Orthography On Writing Disabilities and the Necessity for Cross-Linguistic Research (J. Reich, E. L. Grigorenko); and (20) A Model of Writing Chinese Characters: Data From Acquired Dysgraphia and Writing Development (M. Leung, S. Law. R. Fung, H. Lui, B. S. Weekes). Part VII, The Diagnosis and Assessment of Writing as a Skill and a Competence, contains the following: (21) Large-Scale Writing Assessment: New Approaches Adopted In the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) (J. Lee, L. Stankov); and (22) Design of a College-Level Test of Written Communication: Theoretical and Methodological Challenges (J. Manzi, P. Flotts, D. D. Preiss). Part VIII, Testimonials, contains the following: (23) Burning Down the House: Ethics and Reception in Poetry Translation (R. Couch); (24) Bringing Redemption to the World: A Translation Sampler (J. Felstiner); (25) A Narrator's Testimony Between Reading, Writing, and Displacements (A. Jeftanovic); (26) The Story Behind My Being A Writer (G. J. Rose); and (27) Twelve Hundred Publications Later: Reflections on a Career of Writing in Psychology (R. J. Sternberg).