News! News! News…letter

Hello Everybody out there in Blog Land, I just wanted to take a minute to let you know that I’ve finally joined the Internet Age and created an email newsletter. If you want to receive all my latest writing news, blog posts, recipes, and more, hand-curated and...

Stammering

I’m preparing to attend a conference at Notre Dame in just a few weeks called Trying to Say God: Re-enchanting Catholic Literature. I’m terribly excited to finally meet face to face many of the movers and shakers of the Catholic literary world. It’s an honor and an...

The Overrated Art of the Opening Line

Anyone who has ever taken a creative writing class has been indoctrinated with the importance of the first impression. That elusive perfect opening image, the one that instantly hooks the reader, that declares this book to be un-put-down-able, has developed an almost...

Cinder Allia coming soon!

I’m thrilled to announce that my second novel, Cinder Allia, will be coming your way this summer! Dates are still tentative, but the gears are turning to get it out to you, hopefully in time for you to bring it to the beach! Here’s a hint of things to...

Adventures in Music-ing

“To music” really ought to be a verb. I realize the -ing form of it would look rather awful: you’d either have to make it musicking—which looks sickly—or you’d have to run the risk of musicing being pronounced like “muse icing”—which is an interesting image, but not...

Easter Communion

  Easter Communion by Gerard Manley Hopkins Pure fasted faces draw unto this feast: God comes all sweetness to your Lenten lips. You striped in secret with breath-taking whips, Those crooked rough-scored chequers may be pieced To crosses meant for Jesu’s;...