(This post is one in a series about the best books ever written. The first post in the series is here.) Divergent, the first of the series by the same name from Veronica Roth, is a clear demonstration not only of what youth-focused literature can be but what it should… Read More »Divergent
(This post is one in a series about the best books ever written. The first post in the series is here.) I did indeed like Angels and Demons enough to put it on my list of best books ever written. And that may shock some people — actually, that does… Read More »Angels and Demons
As many of you are no doubt aware, I teach creative writing at the undergraduate and graduate levels, sometimes to high school students, too. I believe that there is a far too significant break between the study of literature and that of writing. We often are forced to pretend that… Read More »Writing a Future?
I see a woman riding a horse through the village. She has incredible concentration as the horse gallops down the narrow street. I can’t help thinking how impressive it is to have such direction, such focus to get to a destination rather than being prepared to get there someday, eventually,… Read More »Riding the Moment
I am a revolutionary pacifist. I believe in the absolute and unmitigated wrongness of conflict and violence and that it should be completely eliminated and dismissed from human society, that it is a thing best left as a reminder of barbaric times in the distant past, not a reflection of… Read More »Stand By Our Troops?
Throughout the ages, we have been confronted with human nature being called sinful, something that we must fight against and confess and be absolved of by supernatural beings or, at other points in history, our leaders, our peers and even our children. We all make mistakes without exception. If ever… Read More »A Culture of Fists