Buried treasure

Hastings draws on her own experience of overcoming writing blocks as a college student to support her belief that anyone can learn to write well. "The trick is to find buried treasure in our work," she said. Her own teachers in junior and senior high school, didn't critique her writing, said Hastings, who grew up on a farm near Pawnee, Okla. It wasn't until she wrote a paper in college, at the University of Oklahoma, that she started to understand how to write well.

The verdict on whether Borderlands is buried treasure or fool's gold will come down when it hits later this year.

The buried treasure from the shipwreck was found yesterday.