What is the author's perspective in the essay collection, Teaching a Stone to Talk?

Annie Dillard is a writer who has written several other works in addition to "Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters". The reader is given little other information about her background or her education. She has traveled to many different spots and this could be due to a love of travel or as a writer on assignment.

Although the essays in the book are personal ones discussing her thoughts and feelings, Annie clearly intends the essays to be read by others. At several points in the book, she addresses the reader to clarify a point. Thus, she is not writing a personal journal or diary that she intends to keep private from the world. Although she intends the works to be seen by others, they are personal in nature and she may be writing some of them, in part, as a way of reflecting herself on what she sees and experiences.

The readers is drawn into the experiences that Annie has. She allows the reader into her private thoughts and questions, showing how they come to be and how Annie reasons her way through them. The intention seems to be to have the reader experience these struggles and questions with Annie, to understand why Annie feels as she does, and to take this information into the reader's own life to reflect on and think about.