Franzen/Giraldi Fiction as Religious Text

With near-unanimity, [Shirley] Heath’s respondents described substantive works of fiction as, she said, “the only places where there was some civic, public hope of coming to grips with the ethical, philosophical and sociopolitical dimensions of life that were elsewhere treated so simplistically. From Agamemnon forward, for example, we’ve been having to deal with the conflict […]

Poem Published: Elegy on a Former Student’s Dying

Essay Published: An Indispensable Conversation

Fathom Magazine has recently published an issue centered around friendship. They asked me to contribute to this issue, which also happens to be their 5th Anniversary. Over the last five years, they have published several of my poems, essays, an interview, and even a fictional story. This essay on friendship is entitled An Indispensable Conversation […]

John Erickson Contemplating His Own Death

It’s going to happen. I hope that I’ll be prepared for that… I have some satisfaction in thinking that I did what I could to dignify the memory of my parents, the people in my community and my church. I didn’t shame my wife. And I brought some laughter and smiles to children and families. […]

Patrick Kavanaugh – Provincialism vs. Parochialism

Parochialism and provincialism are [direct] opposites. The provincial has no mind of his own; he does not trust what his eyes see until he has heard what the metropolis – towards which his eyes are turned – has to say on any subject. This runs through all activities.  The parochial mentality on the other hand […]

Provincialism in James Wood

Speaking of Fluellen in Shakespeare’s Henry V “…There is something piquant about a man who is at once an omnivorous roamer of the world’s knowledge and literatures, and at the same time a little Welsh provincial. His monologue on how Monmouth resembles the classical city of Macedon is both funny and moving. I tell you, […]

Poetry Reading at Aunt Eek’s

If There is a Reason for a Novelist

If there is a reason for the existence for the novelist on earth it is this: to show the element which holds out against God in the highest and noblest characters–the innermost evils and dissimulations; and also to light up the secret source of sanctity in creatures who seem to us to have failed. “God […]

Newsletter, A Year In

A little over a year ago, I began a newsletter called “In Solitude, For Company” after a line in W.H. Auden’s poem “Horae Canonicae.” I promised that it would include: A lo-fi layout Something I’ve written (usually published by someone else first) Pencil sketches A review of a local artist or author A bi-weekly schedule […]

New Essay about Larry McMurtry

Front Porch Republic published an essay of mine (Larry McMurtry and Wendell Berry at the Dairy Queen) remembering Larry McMurtry and his influence on our local imagination. Below is the opening of the essay; if it intrigues you, then go ahead and click the link above. Amarillo, TX. On a pre-Covid Saturday afternoon in Amarillo, I […]