Poets & Writers and The Writer’s Chronicle are the only two magazines that never seem to make it to the stack of unread magazines forever piling up on my kitchen counter. If one of them shows up in our mailbox around lunch time, instead of plopping it onto the pile, I open it up and read. On those days, it can be an hour or more before lunch is over and I find my way back downstairs to my writing room.
A review of two new books that explore the confluence of spiritual and environmental concerns, “Holy Ground: A Gathering of Voices on Caring for Creation” from Sierra Club books, and “The Green Bible: Understand the Bible’s Powerful Message for the Earth” from HarperOne.
When Ernie Hollander’s family arrived at Auschwitz in 1944, his young sisters were ordered to go to the left as they left the cattle car that had transported them from their home in Hungary. Ernie’s mother was ordered to the right, but she refused to be separated from her daughters. She perished with them in the gas chamber.
One of the handiest writing tips I know – and an easy one to implement – is this: The most powerful place in a paragraph is the last sentence. More precisely, the most powerful place in a paragraph is the last phrase or the last few words of that last sentence.
Jury duty is a lot like softball. I’d rather not do it. I’d rather not sit through the whiplash case. I’d rather not stand there in right field, breathing dust. Yet something in me wants to be on the team. If there is choosing going on, I can’t help wanting to be among the chosen.
