Taking Refuge in Books Before 2021 sweeps me away, I’d like to pay tribute to the authors who grounded, inspired, and sustained me through 2020. Given the relentless barrage of awful news and the seemingly daily need to adjust to new circumstances, I took refuge in the classics. I’ve always felt that reading is a …
The interior life is a real life and it’s the life that continues. It’s powerful beyond imagining, especially if entered with love.
One of the hardest things about creative writing, as far as I’m concerned, is the pervasive sense of getting nowhere. Sure, I might have a productive morning and crank out a few thousand words, but tomorrow I’ll cut half of them, and even if I don’t I’ll likely wait years before those words see the …
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.
The first rule of improvisational theater is to say yes to whatever comes your way. When your fellow actor hands you a toothbrush, don’t bring the show to a stop and demand a corkscrew. Say yes. When you accidentally trip over your shoelaces, don’t get flustered. Say yes as though you intended to be clumsy. …
Great premium is placed on language in our literary culture today. Is it fresh? Is it witty? Does it dazzle? The question I wish reviewers and publishers would ask about language is “Is it true?” We need writers who name the vast diversities of our reality with language that illuminates rather than obscures. Truth, of …