Praying Like a Novelist
The secret to fiction is that the writer “turns from everything to one face…to find oneself face to face with everything,” as novelist Elizabeth Bowen put it.
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Writing
Writers, This Is Our Moment.
Whatever we’re given by inspiration we must augment with effort and then release to move and heal and connect and transform the wider world.
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Writing as a Dialogue with Creation
The fundamental, foundational dialogue in any story is the relational exchange of creation.
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Unpublished But Powerful
Annie Dillard once said that an unpublished, unread manuscript gathering dust under an attic bed still exerts its influence on the world. Is this true? Can we pin our faith and our work’s worth on this hidden, immeasurable impact?
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Finding Acceptance in Surprising Places
What if the new life we look for (in publication, in success) might also be found elsewhere?
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The Small, Accessible World of Publishing
Writers who long to communicate need readers, and readers have particular needs that writers can fill. The small ways we find to close this circle are beautiful works of art in their own right.
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In Our Holographic World
The craft of writing can transform what might otherwise be naval gazing or isolationism into a contemplative practice, one that embraces both the full range of our diversity as well as our singular unity.
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Repaint! Repent! Revise!
You’ve got to deconstruct the old to make room for the new, whether it’s a hallway or a soul. Or, in the case of writers, a rough draft. Or, in the case of climate change, old energy dependencies. Or, in the case of a broken democracy, old complacencies.
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The Gifts of Being Curious
Isn’t curiosity marvelous? Something sparks your interest, and you’re off—questioning, learning, exploring, pondering. Say you meet someone new, share a bit about yourself, and they’re genuinely curious; suddenly you’re deep in conversation, sharing details about yourself or your work that you rarely otherwise disclose, and you begin to wonder whether this person might become a
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How does creation happen?
The story itself—the emergent life inside the inspiration—is a dynamic participant in the creative process.
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