I notice it more and more as I get older, how important making stuff is to me. – Paula Scher, #Abstract I’ve been watching the Netflix series Abstract on and off, generally when no one else is around. Every time I watch an episode I remember again how much I love to create, how much … More Creation
In the days preceding my attendance at the Indiana Faith and Writing Conference, I found myself needing to release a dozen or so expectations and obligations in order to make room. If you’ve been hanging around here long enough you know that I am a classic over-committer. What else can I say yes to? I … More Making Room
It’s a big week for me as I head up north to the Festival of Faith and Writing. I love this conference, and at this year’s event, besides hanging out with a boatload of truly excellent people, I get to meet my agent face-to-face. I’m also going to be reading at One Poet, One Poem, and … More This Week in Books and Words and Legos
Over a decade ago, I started scratching down the clippings of diseased rose stems and transplanted Black Eyed Susans alongside the ache and emptiness of miscarriage. The Word doc morphed from computer to computer as we moved from Ellet to South Akron to Ashland to Copley. The story kept changing and growing, from one miscarriage … More The Body Is Not a Coffin
My latest blog post for Off the Page on the roots of racism and what we ought to do about “The Others” was shared on Wednesday. It was difficult to write this article because the temptation for me and I suspect other Christian writers is to craft the I-was-lost-but-now-I’m-found message, I was bad but now I’m … More The Middle Ground
Summer is coming to a close, which means the children go back to school, Henry starts preschool three days a week, and football season begins. Now that we’re done with this thing, onto the next thing. The clouds are racing and changing across the sky, moving the weather and the seasons along, and now it’s … More The Next Thing and the Next Thing
A couple of weeks ago was the River Teeth Nonfiction Conference, and leading up to that were lots of long nights getting ready. I’ve been feeling frustrated with my ability to make time for writing, here or anywhere else, but now that the conference is over and I’ve given my brain a little break from … More The Desire to Be Desired
I finished listening to two books in the last couple of days, The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit and Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, both of which I highly recommend. I’m really into figuring out structure of books lately and thinking about the ways that authors assemble their thoughts, especially in nonfiction, and the image … More April in Books and Birds
Since switching jobs this fall, I’ve thought a lot about the writing life and how you go about making time to write. Writers bemoan the lack of time they have to dedicate to their craft more than any other group of people aspiring to something. There are dozens of articles written– by writers who apparently … More Writers, Just Do It
It is the end of National Poetry Month today, and while I wrote not a single poem for the month, I have been busy chiseling away at my memoir-in-essays, which has its own sort of lyricism and poetic turns, and that totally counts, right? I have done much to celebrate poetry in April, however, giving … More April Showers
