Last weekend at the Festival of Faith and Writing, Ann Kroeker and I led a Festival Circle (discussion group) called “Advance Your Writing through Giving and Getting Feedback.” We talked about what feedback is helpful at each stage of the writing process and who might be the best person to ask. Read more
I like a good festival. The greasy fair food, the amateur entertainment, the vendors selling things you never knew you needed until you see them hanging in a miniature tent. I’ve braved shoulder-to-shoulder crowds, weather ranging … Read more
“Books invite us to share in a sustained, subtle, complex system of making sense of things,” Scott Russell Sanders said Tuesday evening during an event hosted by the Plainfield Public Library. He was reading from his essay “Hunger for Books” in the compilation The Country of Language. The essay was about reading, and how as […] Read more
Today, I was part of a community. Seventy-five people from my church convened at an old public school building in the Brookside neighborhood on the near-East side of Indianapolis to wash walls, serve hotdogs, and play basketball with local kids. The building is being repurposed as a classical, Christian school, which hopefully will stimulate community […] Read more
At some point in the last year or so, I stopped writing at the desk in my studio. The move to the couch or the kitchen table was certainly a matter of convenience in the beginning. My sisters have each stayed with me for a period of 12 weeks, and each of them occupied the […] Read more
Attending writing conferences brings out the best of me. The sessions inspire me in my craft; the other writers help me feel connected; the book tables tickle my imagination. I take pages of notes; I breathe the air of creativity; I function on less sleep than normal. Read more
