Writing · Thoughts
Thoughts
Essays and reflections on writing, culture, history, community, and the ideas that stay with us.
Finding Your Rituals in the New Normal
You might think about ways you can incorporate a ritual into your life. To find a moment when you can make everything stand still, you can silence the voices, you can feel some stillness and—dare I say it?—sanity.
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Tribalism, Faith, and a Netflix Movie
Do we want churches that turn people away, or churches that welcome them? Do we want a country that turns people away, or one that welcomes everyone?
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Reading Can Change You
I’d like to talk about how this book has changed some of my understandings of life in 2025—not only through what he writes, but through my internal dialogue with his words.
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AI Isn’t Just a Problem for Authors, It’s a Problem for the World
Why am I writing about this, when I usually talk about fiction and storytelling and books? I’ll be honest: it’s because I’m scared. There’s a lot about AI that’s terrifying, not least of which is the possibility that generations of students won’t learn how to write. But this strikes me as a far more existential threat.
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And Now for Something Completely Different: Killer Rabbits
This essay has nothing to do with anything, because my brain and heart need a vacation from thinking about Important and Disquieting Things. So today I’m diving back into my past academic work in medieval history to offer you: bunnies striking back.
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You’re Going to Die, You Know
When you hold your mortality close, you stop pretending you have endless time. You stop chasing distractions.
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Censorship Is So 1984. Read for Your Rights
I’ll be honest: some of these books do contain scary or uncomfortable material, but that does not mean they should be kept away from the public. Life is full of scary and uncomfortable circumstances. People go through unpleasant, tragic, and downright terrifying experiences every day, and these characters, stories, and situations mirror the experiences that people have. And help us learn how to cope with those experiences.
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Facts May Be Dead. The Truth Isn’t.
We’re called to make something of the here and now, to make something that approximates truth out of the fear and the confusion and the lies, if for no other reason than to leave a record.
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Just a Frivolous Interview
I did this interview a year or so ago for a publication whose name I’ve forgotten… but it was frivolous and fun and I feel that maybe sometimes something a little lighter would do us all some good! Enjoy!
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Beyond This Be Dragons
I don’t know how to live on the borderline between what was and what will be, in the current shadow world of secrets and lies and abominations.
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Know Them Before You Break Them
But essential to any of these options is an understanding of both the rule’s original intent and its current application; in comparing these two aspects, we can proceed with genuine wisdom.
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Why AI Can’t Do Poetry
A bot executes algorithms, and does so perfectly every time. There is no space there for the experience of failure, or the yearning for something transcendent.
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The Loneliness Crisis: Words to the Rescue
I feel I’m leaving friends, or acquaintances, or a whole community behind when I close the book. How on earth could I ever be lonely?
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Enough Is Enough
For us in the West, “enough” often means “not quite what I want, but it will do.” But what if enough were actually—enough?
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The Story of My Stories
And I realized something I may have known before, but certainly never articulated: that for me, the plot is the last thing I worry about. (Strange admission for a mystery writer to make!).
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Real or Robot? Who Can Tell?
Ludwig Wittgenstein says that we form language as part of human activity, and that we then shape that activity through language. But both parts are necessary; and, so far, AI can’t manage the “human activity” part of the equation.
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Why We Write in Dark Times
Art is never neutral—it holds power, shapes culture, and carries history. Keep making it. Keep making light.
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In Times of Darkness, Artists Make Light
This country and this world need the light now more than ever. Together, we can find it, and nurture it, and embody it.
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Is Speculation All That’s Left?
The truth is, we’re all writing speculative fiction now.
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