Finalist in Narrative’s 2013 Spring Contest

“Lantern, Name Thy Bearer”, an excerpt from a long story I’ve been working on, was selected as a finalist in Narrative Magazine’s 2013 Spring Contest. Here’s a list of the finalists, a group in which I’m proud to be found: Jerad Alexander On Our Next Stop in Modern War Robert Bausch Rescue Joe David Bellamy […]

Melville without Milton

Like Shelley and Blake, Melville was charmed by the individualism and heroic striving of Milton’s Satan, and he imbued Ahab with the same sense of outsized self-mythologizing. His rereading of Paradise Lost during the composition of Moby Dick significantly altered the novel’s meaning and mythic scope. The extraordinary fact is that as late as 1849 […]

His Tomb Is With Us To This Day

Once again, the fine folks @curatormagazine have posted one of my essays. I have a few more scheduled over the next several weeks, so I’ll keep you informed. http://www.curatormagazine.com/seth-wieck/his-tomb-is-with-us-to-this-day/ My nephew Jude was stillborn. The diagnosis came early in the pregnancy: an extra chromosome written into the genetic language would lead to, among other maladies, […]

There is a certain kind of fascination, a strictly artistic fascination, which arises from a matter being hinted at in such a way as to leave a certain tormenting uncertainty even at the end. It is well sometimes to half understand a poem in the same manner that we half understand the world. One of […]

The task theology has to fulfill is continually to stimulate and lead [the community] to face squarely the question of the proper relation of their human speech to the Word of God, which is origin, object, and content of this speech. Barth, Karl. Evangelical Theology: An Introduction. William B. Eerdman’s Publishing Company, Grand Rapids. 1979. p […]

Blaisedell, the poet, had said to him, “You love beer so much. I’ll bet some day you’ll go in and order a beer milk shake.” It was a simple piece of foolery but it had bothered Doc ever since. He wondered what a beer milk shake would taste like. The idea gagged him but he […]

The Root of Evil: Does Religion Promote Violence?

What the bombers’ motivations were exactly has yet to be pieced together and may never be fully known. What drives a young man to blow up strangers is most often a volatile cocktail of hormone-saturated ingredients, not always fully transparent to the bomber himself. What is known, however, is that a version of Islam played […]

The problem I’ve had and continue to have is that we (upper-middle-class, educated Westerners, for the most part) are a self-celebrating lot. We click “like” on each other, whether by private flattery or public review, and expect to be “liked” back. As a result we churn our culture that’s less threatening, less offensive and cutting, […]

matttaylordraws: Double blog day! This was an editorial piece for the guys over at The New Republic. It turned out rather nicely. Matt Taylor is worth following. Also, Yay! for left-handed writers.

Little Girl Found

The kind folks @curatormagazine have posted one of my essays. Warning: it concerns child abductions. Here’s a link: Little Girl Found. A few years ago in a neighboring town, booming as a safe alternative to my relatively safe city, a man with no criminal record or history drove into the parking lot of a gas […]