"She does not like being called an 'amateur' by all the 'professionals' who have graduate training, advanced degrees, and university positions. She prefers, she said in a 1981 collection of essays covering her career, to recognize the difference between them and her 'by distinguishing between academics and independents, or between scholars and writers, rather than between professionals and amateurs.' She may not have a Ph.D., but she is as much of a pro as the professors are, and rather more so if making a living by your work is any criterion of being professional. She can communicate with a willing readership, which is more than the professors can do. . . . They really do not know how 'to capture and hold the interest of an audience.' "
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