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Where is the heat in your writing?
I picked up the Rose Metal Press’ Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction at the AWP conference this past March. This morning I began reading it as I contemplated this blog and the writing I hope to do. Bloggers would be well-served to study this “flash” genre of writing, since all of it is pertinent to the…
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When Worship Works
Worship doesn’t always work. It doesn’t work when your student pianist can’t get through a whole hymn verse without stopping and starting three times. Or when the toddler, who accidentally bumps his head, drowns out your sermon’s climactic crescendo with his screams. Or when your congregation, who faithfully shows up Sunday morning after a long…
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My Summer Priority–write, write, write
People often don’t realize how hard those of us in an academic community work during the year. The enviable focus is on our summers “off”—which assumes a career of leisure in higher education. I am actually on a twelve-month contract, though, so I will go in to the office every day this June and July.…
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Serious Business
I enjoy reading the Paris Review’s interviews of writers because they are often inspiring. I ran across their interview of Maya Angelou the other day and was particularly struck by this question and answer exchange: INTERVIEWER You once told me that you write lying on a made-up bed with a bottle of sherry, a dictionary,…
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There’s a Woman in the Pulpit
Everywhere I have served as a pastor I have had a group of clergywomen to whom I could turn for support and encouragement—a safe space to talk with colleagues who understood. Women pastors need such spaces because, even though we are less and less unique (as of 2013 36% of Presbyterian Church (USA) pastors are…
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Writing Sex
I’m attending a lot of panels here at AWP: a couple on social media, one on the contemplative writing of Thomas Merton, and one on writing the “occasion” poem (which inspired my forthcoming inauguration prayer.) All the panels I’ve attended have been really useful and informative, so yesterday I decided to attend something completely different.…
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Out of My Zone: A Pastor Attends AWP
I decided to stand out today as I got dressed for my first AWP Conference (Association of Writers and Writing Programs). So I pulled on my gray wool dress pants, black ballet flats and a black blouse. When I registered yesterday I noticed a lot of body piercings, black framed eye-glasses, leggings and boots (Doc…
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What I Know and What I Don’t
“Why did this happen to me?” She looked directly and desperately into my eyes as she asked, tears welling and spilling from her own. I had moved to her good, right side so she could see me after her husband had slipped out of the room to speak to the doctor. In this brief moment…
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A Room of Ten: Interfaith Immersion
I’m going to do something weird,” Malak whispered to Katie, her bunkmate for our six-day interfaith immersion trip to Chicago. Malak slips into her cotton prayer robe, its royal blue flower print covers her head, her arms to her wrists, and hangs to her feet. She begins her prayers, facing Mecca, alternating positions of standing…
Teri McDowell Ott 