Time to reevaluate the prominence trauma has in our stories

There’s an excellent article on the prevalence of the trauma plot in contemporary literature in the January 3-10 issue of The New Yorker, which grabbed my attention for two reasons: first, as a writer wanting to understand more about the craft (and which types of stories are currently popular and why) but secondly, as someone …

Turmoil + soul = jazz

So I’m lying in bed, unable to sleep. Some years back. And I’m thinking about money. Not thinking so much as fretting. Probably panicking. So I go downstairs and for some reason stand in front of my bookshelf, looking up at the books I hadn’t looked at or considered or opened for a long time. …

‘I will be known’: A treasured conversation

Our last coffee was had beneath the gaze of Mary, mother of Jesus, on December 17, 2018, some months before she left. I didn’t know it would be our last one-on-one conversation. Neither did she. That’s the point—we rarely know. It’s only afterwards, in retrospect, that these final conversations find their light. Fortuitously, the conversation …

Good Friday: A face-off with anxiety at the edge of the ocean

Today, I walked alone to the edge of the ocean, to confront my cross. It's Good Friday, after all, it's what you do. But my cross isn't in the church. It's there on the beach, in the shadows of the cliffs, right on the line where the surf comes to the end of itself and …