Writing Room: The Punch Line Always Goes Last
Everyone knows that the punch line goes at the end of a joke, not the beginning. A mystery writer knows to set the story up and get all the necessary events and clues in place before revealing that the pizza delivery guy did it. The same is true of a paragraph and a sentence.
GodsBigBlog: Native American Tori Isner — Want to Find Holy? Go Look at a Rock
Army vet Tori Isner traces her roots to the Eastern Band of Cherokee of North Carolina. She’s an adopted Lakota Sioux who currently lives in Texas. “Go look at the ocean. That’s Creator. That’s beauty.”
Simone Weil on Prayer — First, Pay Attention. Book Openers
Simone Weil’s life was a short one, but her startling insights into the nature of God and God’s relationship to humanity pertain today. Read more.
The Writing Room: Is Less More? Or Is More More?
What’s wrong with this sentence? “It was a letter from my lover; my heart thumped, my stomach sank, my breath stopped, and my hands shook as I opened it.”
The Writing Room: Two Must-Have Craft Journals for the Literary Writer
Of all the books and magazines that come my way each week, my favorites are the ones that talk about writing — like Poets & Writers and Writer’s Chronicle. Read more.
Book Openers: Green for God
A review of two new books that explore the confluence of spiritual and environmental concerns, “Holy Ground: A Gathering of Voices on Caring for Creation” from Sierra Club books, and “The Green Bible: Understand the Bible’s Powerful Message for the Earth” from HarperOne.
A Mother Who Prevailed at Auschwitz
When Ernie Hollander’s family arrived at Auschwitz in 1944, his mother was ordered to the right, his sisters to the left. Read more.
Writing Room: Ending Paragraphs and Sentences with a Bang
The most powerful place in a paragraph is its last sentence. More precisely, the most powerful place in a paragraph is the last few words of that sentence. Read more.
A Case of the Human Condition: Choose Me, Please!
Jury duty is a lot like fourth grade softball. Something in me wants to be on the team. If there is choosing going on, I want to be among the chosen. Read more.
Book Openers: The Emerging, Emergent Church — What’s Up Next for Christianity?
“About every five hundred years the Church feels compelled to hold a giant rummage sale,” Phyllis Tickle writes in her new book, “The Great Emergence.” In the two thousand years since its founding, Christianity has reinvented itself several times.