Last week, in going over a roundup of some potential holiday gifts for writers, I mentioned the new illustrated Elements of Style. Today, Caroline Callahan chats with author and illustrator Maira Kalman, contributor to the new guide.

Mediabistro: You discovered Strunk & White's Elements of Style in a Cape Cod thrift shop-what was it about the book that made you want to illustrate it?

Kalman: It was an immediate "Aha!" moment, and it was reading a book that was clearly written by someone who was a wonderful writer. That was foremost. The book was also very funny-it was written with a lot of humor. It was humorous, and personal, and human-the exact opposite of what you expect a grammar book to be. It had the voice of the writer in it from the very first line. And it was very humanistic. I also love things that are disjointed, where one sentence just jumps to another sentence. And for me that kind of jumping from one thing to the other is really wonderful.

More here.