Play with Me!
Without carving space between and within our necessary activities to engage the world spontaneously, for its own sake, there’s no life-spark. Play is how we come spiritually alive.
Writing
Seeking Justice Through Stories
As writers break apart single stories on the page, they also exercise this muscle of multiplicity, strengthening their capacity to withhold judgment and embrace paradox and remain open to new layers of understanding.
Seeking Justice Through Stories Read More »
What Others Think–What I Think–No Thought
Even an audience of one may be one too many. The self that is vigilant in me is also my monkey mind, and my spiritual practice involves releasing this self again and again. What if the self of my most intimate writing isn’t my real self?
What Others Think–What I Think–No Thought Read More »
Intercourse with the World
The main drama of memoir is not what happened in the past but what happens when we consider the past and allow ourselves to be changed by the consideration.
Intercourse with the World Read More »
Writing as Deep Listening
Every story has a hidden life—a soul, if you will. How writers tend this soul significantly affects our work and our well-being. This tending is really active listening. It’s both willful, sprung from the self, and responsive, heeding that life-force beyond the story and its readership.
Writing as Deep Listening Read More »
Walking On Air
But this is our progression when learning an art, and (I suspect) when living life: First we’re unconscious, then we’re self-conscious, and then we’re aware of being self-conscious, which is truly agonizing. Only then can we come into consciousness and make conscious choices that shape our lives.
From Will to Inspiration: The Creative Spectrum
Both inspiration and willful exertion bring gifts and weaknesses; neither one is more worthy or more likely to produce art. That said, I’m convinced that an artist who inhabits an extreme on the spectrum at the stubborn exclusion of the other extreme is certain to stumble. The best art-making slides up and down the scale.
From Will to Inspiration: The Creative Spectrum Read More »
Message from the Page: “Would you please pay attention?!”
Contemplation is our central task as writers, and as human beings.
Message from the Page: “Would you please pay attention?!” Read More »
The Democratic Nature of Writing
If genuine, open-hearted engagement is the basic ingredient of the creative process, then we all have the capacity to move a reader.
The Democratic Nature of Writing Read More »
Marty’s Gift: Better than Publication
Never have I read a recovery memoir that was so ripping hilarious, emotionally astute, and theologically provocative. Marty was a fantastic writer. He worked on that tome (three volumes long!) for as long as I knew him—over a decade. It was one of the most exciting projects I’ve ever supported.
Marty’s Gift: Better than Publication Read More »