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Showing posts from October, 2020

The Apostle James Attends My Creative Writing Class

We'll begin with something a bit fantastic, that being a visit from the apostle James: He stood at my school desk the other day -- I'd gone for some water -- and he opened one of my books. It lay flat on my desk next to a description of an exercise we do in class. Conveniently, the book he opened contained his own letter to some of the first people to proclaim Jesus as the Christ, and he flipped right to it. He didn't say anything, but pointed out to me a few passages. Then he directed my eyes to some parallels in what we do in my Creative Writing classes. It's in light of this that I offer this meditation on faith and writing. I'm in my 9th year of creative writing instruction. Spread into two classes, almost evenly, I have 22 students this year -- which is more than usual. The mix of students who want to write with those who need an easy class to blow off is about the same; the mix of their anxieties, if we only consider anxieties that are class-related, is also n