“On the Joys and Trials” is an unpublished speech Lafferty prepared in March 1982 for the Oklahoma Library Association Conference. It was to be delivered on April 23 of that year. The typescript, preserved at the University of Tulsa, shows his working method. He wrote, typed the text, and destroyed the scaffolding. The pages have a handful of handwritten corrections, running word counts in the margins, and a cover sheet noting the occasion. But it is special. It is the ful