Food HeritageLast week’s TheHighCalling.org book club selection of essays (from The Spirit of Food: 34 Writers on Feasting and Fasting toward God) included Denise Frame Harlan’s essay “And She Took Flour.”As I followed her story of learning to eat (and eventually cook) real food, I sat almost as stunned as she did when a professor read excerpts from The Supper of the Lamb … [Read more...]
Food on Fridays: We Are Real (and so is the food)
(smaller button below)Here at the Food on Fridays carnival, any post remotely related to food is welcome—though we love to try new dishes, your post doesn’t have to be a recipe. If you want to tell us about the first person who taught you to cook, that’s great. Posts like that are as welcome as menus and recipes. … [Read more...]
People Who Listen
Wednesday morning, a dear friend of mine came over with her mom so that the kids and I could help her stuff and stamp wedding invitations.Only two of my four kids were available. My 12-year-old daughter, a task-oriented girl, devoted herself to the work, happily stuffing and licking envelopes. She completed a giant stack in record time.Meanwhile, my eight-year-old son … [Read more...]
Festival of Faith & Writing 2010: Writing Advice and Making an Impression
Memories of the Festival of Faith & Writing are beginning to dim, and you're probably losing interest in my April literary adventure.But before memories fade altogether, I thought I'd share the last of my notes from a panel discussion featuring Luci Shaw, James Schaap, and Robert Siegel (and no, he is not Robert Siegel, co-host of NPR's "All Things Considered; this is … [Read more...]
Celebrating My Writer-Mom
My mom worked as the editor of our local newspaper, covering news all over the county. If a reporter couldn't make it to an event, Mom would grab her camera, reporter's pad, and pen—and quite often her daughter—to capture the news herself. This meant that whether I wanted to or not, I visited sporting events, live nativity scenes, church bazaars, festivals, fairs, horse … [Read more...]
Imperfect Conditions
"If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done." (Ecclesiastes 11:4, New Living Translation) If I waited for the perfect conditions to develop my writing life, I'd still be waiting. Back in the early 1990s, I did manage to explore writing as my work, as a way of life. I wrote and submitted a few magazine articles and met with … [Read more...]
Food on Fridays: Festival Spillage
Here at the Food on Fridays carnival, any post remotely related to food is welcome—it doesn’t have to be a recipe. Food on Fridays Participants 1. N is for Nutrition@ frugalcrunchychristy' s2. April@ The 21st Century Housewife (White Chocolate and Macadamia Cookies)3. Marinara Sauce Crockpot Style4. Giveaway to Enhance Food5. Prudent & Practical {Pancakes}6. … [Read more...]
Festival of Faith & Writing 2010: Friday Highlights
The Festival is over. I've returned home to laundry and lunches. I've also typed e-mails with numerous typos due to the blur of fatigue. Dare I continue the story even though the fun is fading into quotidian reality? I'll try...let's see how it goes.After Eugene Peterson's talk on Friday, my anonymous friend headed off to visit a friend while Leslie Leyland Fields and I … [Read more...]
Festival of Faith & Writing 2010: More Fun
Friday morning, Leslie Leyland Fields and I made plans to connect during the morning coffee hour. She was running a little late, so as I stood around the refreshment area, I spotted Keri Wyatt Kent. I explained that I'm chronicling my time at the Festival in photos, so she kindly posed with me.She said she was here with some writer friends. Late Friday night I encountered … [Read more...]
Festival of Faith & Writing: Festival Fun
Some random documentation of my trip to the Festival of Faith & Writing begins with this evidence of my crossing the state line.Calvin College's campus is colorful.Ran into my friend Stacy Morgan the very first thing. I registered, slipped my name tag on, set my bag down next to a chair, flipped through the packet, looked up and saw Stacy sitting on the couch next to … [Read more...]
Reward the Good and Ignore the Bad: Does It Work?
Not long ago I wrote about Destructive Criticism vs. Healthy Critique when working with writers. The post generated a variety of responses as the conversation continued in the comments. Shepherdsgrace, for example, had a terrific experience in a writing workshop that included input from the professor and classmates. She explained: when I was in college I had the … [Read more...]
Destructive Criticism vs. Healthy Critique
Writers write to be heard, which means writers must brace themselves for input, whether it ends up being destructive criticism or health critique. J.C. Schaap describes this kind of input among students in his blog post "Witless Fear and Hug Lines." In it, he tells how scary it is for a student to lay out something he or she has written in front of her … [Read more...]
Food on Fridays: Go Greek with L.L. Barkat
(smaller button below)Here at the Food on Fridays carnival, any post remotely related to food is welcome—your link could be a recipe like your favorite Colts blue Superbowl party dip, but it does not have to be a recipe. If it’s about shopping at Trader Joe's or your review of "Julie & Julia," go ahead and link up! Think of it as a virtual pitch-in where you can sample … [Read more...]
Listen in on my chat with L.L. Barkat
L.L. Barkat of Seedlings in Stone and Green Inventions Central interviewed me about Not So Fast.It's appropriate that the title of this post rhymes, as L.L. is a poet. A book of her poetry, entitled Inside Out, was recently published and she hosts the poetry posts (ha! more rhyme!) at HighCallingBlogs.com and Random Acts of Poetry/Poetry Friday at her Seedlings in Stone … [Read more...]
What’s Your Story?
In the Steven Spielberg film "Amistad," there's a scene where John Quincy Adams (played by Anthony Hopkins) talks with a fictional character named Mr. Jodson (played by Morgan Freeman) about who the Africans on the "Amistad" really are. Someone published the dialogue from that scene in an essay both here and here, so I pulled from that source to post it. The interaction … [Read more...]
