From the Dappled Things Catholic literary magazine. I love the images in this piece. It speaks to a writer’s heart in the imagination of applying written (and sung) words to created forms. And there is playfulness, which surely is a key element of inspiration. Above all Abigail Carroll gives me […]
Originality and Passion Versus Marketing Specifications
I was recently in conversation with a publisher interested in having me write something. Just what that “something” should be has shown me that we have widely differing viewpoints. I had a project I’d been working on that I knew would need to be handled by a very different sort […]
Owen, c’mon down! You won The Right to Be Wrong book giveaway! [updated]
Congratulations for winning our book giveaway! I’ll be emailing you to get your contact info to give to the publisher of The Right to Be Wrong. UPDATED It looks as if Adam missed his chance and I haven’t been able to contact him … so Owen is the lucky winner!
Book Giveaway! “The Right to Be Wrong: Ending the Culture War Over Religion in America”
… Ask either faction whether it believes religious liberty is a human right and you’ll get a passionate, tub-thumping — mostly hypocritical — speech in favor of the idea. That’s because religious freedom is so familiar, so American a concept that nobody can really admit to opposing it. That would […]
Saturday Grab Bag: Face-to-Face and C.S. Lewis on Stories
I realized that lately I’ve been encouraging people I know to get out there and meet people face-to-face. This is kind of funny since I was speaking to them in person. But I was talking about the synergy that happens when you put yourself in a place where there are […]
Why We Need Editors, Beta Readers, Writers’ Groups, and Thick Skin
My friend Jesse at SFFaudio often laments the modern decline of the editor and the corresponding decline in writing quality today. I can’t help but agree. Publishers are cutting costs wherever they can which often seems to affect editing quality. Self-publishing takes its own toll as eager authors may not have […]
Respecting Conscience: “The Right to be Wrong” by Kevin Seamus Hasson
I wrote this way back in 2005 but find myself repeatedly recommending it to people, especially as the government’s HHS mandate threatens to curtail our religious liberty. This book cuts to the heart of the problem: the government is not willing to allow us the right to be wrong. The […]
Audio Resources for Writers (and Story Lovers)
I don’t talk to many writers, so I am usually on my own when it comes to getting inspiration or instruction in the art of writing. I don’t go looking for writing info but sometimes it sneaks up on me anyway. Reading The Habit of Being, a collection of Flannery […]
How Do You Do? As Well as a Poem for Writers … and Cat Lovers.
Hi everyone, I’m Julie Davis, new to the Catholic Writers’ Guild but not new to a lot of the familiar names I’ve seen here. We may have met at my blog, Happy Catholic, which is where I “live” on the internet. Holy Moly, I just looked at my oldest post […]