Category: writing

Just imagine writing one of your books with two thousand dead bodies to explain. And every single one of them left someone behind, begging their gods to undo it. Karen Joy Fowler, “Private Grave 9.”

Augustine’s God-shaped hole. But some people, she says, realize the emptiness itself is God. Jamie Quatro, Fire Sermon.

They were small people, with lawny eyebrows and demure hands. Laura Kolbe, “Crimes of Paris.” 

A note on how my writerly resolutions for 2019 are going. On the novel front, I’m not doing so great. Only 1,664 words net gained on the novel. I should be doing over 4,000 words per month to meet my goal (well now, it’s more like 4,400). Short stories are both a bit ahead of […]

Now feelings lasted so long they left stains. Annie Dillard, An American Childhood.

“Kiddush” is the opening chapter of my novel in progress, We, the Rescued. The novel, in an Oulipo-esque fashion, takes its structure from the Passover Haggadah and in a sort of an ontogeny-recapitulates-philogeny fashion, the chapter takes its structure from the first prayer of the Passover Seder, the Kiddush, or blessing over wine. I took the […]

The way she looked was something I felt in my guts. Taylor Koekkoek, “The Wedding Party.” 

After all, I was the intelligentsia around these parts, single handedly. The intelligentsium. Annie Dillard, An American Childhood.

They were surprised that the nuns did not proselytize or try to get them to see the light. They just listened. Some only came once or twice. But the ones who returned again and again began to realize on their own that the conversations were about God, even if He was never mentioned. God through […]