What’s the real value of our writing? Others may answer this differently, but here is my take: Does the act of writing help you come more alive? Then it’s valuable. Does your writing help even one other reader come more alive? Then it’s valuable.
Why I Write, Part 2: Because it’s worthwhile. Read More »
Stories weave themselves into the fabric of our lives and irrevocably change us. That my story did this for Nikki seems a miracle, or at least an act of grace. Perhaps the miracle is that I actually got to know Nikki and watch her build her own amazing story with my words in the margins.
Why I Write, Part 1: Nikki Kirby Read More »
The literary world isn’t served well by our super-star culture. Publishers throw money at certain books to guarantee their stardom. Readers get a thrill from reading the books of famous people rather than from reading good stories. And writers must labor at building platforms rather than honing our craft.
How then can we crow-bar ourselves out of hierarchical thinking into a place of greater freedom?
Hierarchy & Division in the Writing World Read More »
If moral writing is “unmistakably and unsentimentally rooted in love,” bring it on!
Moral writing? Uncool, but bring it on! Read More »
We can be in dialogue with our whole being, accepting what life makes of us, taking what has happened, and making of it something new. From this dynamic exchange comes aliveness—our own and the world’s.
The funny thing is that, wrong as we are, we do belong here, and wrong as our work may be, it belongs as well. Everything is cracked, and everything is beautiful.
Broken & Beautiful: How the Light Gets In Read More »
Revision insists that we reject the single story in favor of layered, complex, and contradictory stories. Just as intimacy and awareness break down our stereotypes, intimacy with and awareness of our material break apart our over-simplifications and half-truths.
Undoing the Single Story Read More »
Because of Robinson’s vast permission to explore what she wills however she wills, she’s creating literature that ministers to a profound and very contemporary thirst—for grace, for beauty, for kindness. She teaches me that those hidden, peculiar, contrary motivations that rise up when I’m given solitude are even more worthy than I thought.
Permission for Privacy Read More »
All writers know the magic of putting aside a problematic passage (for a nap or a walk) only to have the solution appear unbidden. This turning away from writing is, paradoxically, an essential part of writing.
I’ve been bowled over by how many people have shared with me that they feel like frauds. It plagues artists, for whom there’s always some level of public recognition to strive for that might finally affirm our worth; it plagues leaders, who must stand in front of people who will inevitably question their authority; it plagues parents, who feel they should know what they’re doing and don’t. Is there anyone who doesn’t at some point feel fraudulent?!
Feeling like a Fraud–or Not Read More »