Johanna Drucker is among the foremost authorities on the history of alphabets, writing, artists' books, and visual poetry. This book is a compendium of Drucker's thought - yet rather than anthologize from her numerous published books, Figuring the Word collects writings only previously found in academic and literary journals, as well as transcriptions of her lectures and interviews. The book is divided into sections, each with several chapters, which include "Writing as Artifact", "Visual Poetics", "Artists' Books Past and Future" and "The Future of Writing". None of the work in Figuring the Word has ever been published in book form before, and yet it extends and reveals the already broad range of Drucker's voracious and penetrating intellect.