left-handed

Ana Reinert’s Fountain Pen Guide for the Left-handed Writer and Goulet Pens’s Fountain Pens for Lefties set out some of the challenges faced by left-handed fountain pen users like me. Mostly the challenges involve having to push the nib across the page rather than pull it, and smudging your writing with your hand before the ink has time to dry. For my part I’ve had trouble with fine nibs scratching the page, and with smudging ink (particularly on Clairefontaine Triomphe pads; I suspect I’ll have the same trouble with Rhodia, but I haven’t broken into my stash of that stuff yet). Options include avoiding flex and stub nibs and using fast-drying inks. And some pens just work better: the medium-nib Pilot Metropolitan I use right now is the best pen I’ve ever written with.