Tag: writing
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Living the Questions with Amy Frykholm
Amy Frykholm, author of Julian of Norwich: A Contemplative Biography; See Me Naked: Stories of Sexual Exile in American Christianity; Rapture Culture: Left Behind in Evangelical America; Christian Understandings of the Future: The Historical Trajectory and Associate Editor of the Christian Century magazine visited my campus last week and spoke to us of her call…
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God as an annihilating silence
Annihilate (verb): destroy utterly; obliterate; defeat Christian Wiman describes God as an “annihilating silence” in My Bright Abyss. What does Wiman mean by this? That God is a soundless, destructive force? That God is an unapprehensible energy moving among us? Or, that God is a SILENCE that can destroy all the NOISE of our life, all the…
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My Favorite Writing Podcasts (at the moment)
Every once in a while I get sucked into an advertisement for a writing conference…ten days….in a beautiful retreat house…overlooking a lake…in Guatemala…eating organic food…practicing yoga…for $3,000 (housing and travel not included.) Yikes! Price tags like this are good reality checks. Seriously, what does it take to grow in your writing craft? Pen, paper, butt…
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Ten Reasons I am Grateful for AWP
This week I attended my second AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) annual conference in Washington, D.C. Here are ten reasons why I am grateful for this experience: Meeting writers and editors in person who I only knew through blogging and social media such as, Allison K Williams (read my post about her amazing book,…
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Interested in Publishing?
Just a quick post this week for those interested in writing and publishing. I discovered, Allison K. Williams’ book Get Published in Literary Magazines: The Indispensable Guide to Preparing, Submitting…and Writing Better through the Brevity magazine’s blog last week. It looked great, so I ordered it and promptly devoured the book this week—reading in every spare moment.…
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Intentionally Blank
In an article from The Write Practice, Jeff Elkins offers tips on how to find your “Thoughtful Spot.” This is a trick, Elkins writes, that he learned from Winnie the Pooh. “His Thoughtful Spot was a log under a tree marked by a sign that read, ‘Pooh’s thotful spot.’ It was the place where Pooh…
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Good Habits
When I am too busy or too tired at night to read, I rely on podcasts to take in content that will keep me thinking and creating. Last night, I was so exhausted after a week of opening activities at my college that I was tempted to go to bed along with my kids at…
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Is the hard work worth it?
Our seven-year-old daughter has been learning to play the cello for the past two years. We are fortunate to have a Suzuki cello teacher at our college who makes learning music fun. But Ella still has to practice every day, even when she doesn’t want to. Being good at something like music takes persistent, hard…
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A Virtual Placeholder
Last night I ransacked my recently cleaned home office in search of a poem I wrote two years ago about a sweet moment with my daughter. During a week when I am trying to write a sermon, a wedding homily and a first draft of my new essay, I thought it would be the perfect,…