On one level this is a story about vocation—a baptism by electricity—but it is also a story about time and eternity, death and resurrection—themes that would preoccupy Bradbury over a writing career that spanned seven decades.

Among those who work on behalf of them, it has become a truism that our first obligation toward our less fortunate brothers and sisters is to first recognize and celebrate their humanity. What is less often recognized is the vital role that art can play in such a process.

Poverty is the kind of topic that makes someone like me uncomfortable. After all, my bailiwick is the world of high art—literature, painting, sculpture, classical music, and so on.

The ongoing conversation about contemporary literature and faith that I have been having with Dana Gioia and Paul Elie across half a dozen print and online venues, though it has touched on a dozen different issues, ultimately comes down to one: “absence” versus “presence.” The question Elie has raised, you may recall, is whether we…

In yesterday’s post I wrote about author and critic Paul Elie’s contention that few contemporary writers depict characters struggling with religious belief in novels with contemporary settings. Among other things, I argued that his conviction that having a contemporary setting is somehow supremely valuable is both short-sighted and literalistic—that Elie has a rather narrow understanding…

Writing a response to a published essay can be seen as public service, a way of contributing to the larger cultural conversation. On the other hand, writing several responses within a relatively short period of time can easily come across as carping or sour grapes. That consideration is very much at the forefront of my…

Last week we posted a list of The Top 25 Contemporary Writers of Faith. We did so for several reasons, perhaps the most important being that there continue to be articles and essays proclaiming a dearth of contemporary literature that grapples with the age-old religious questions of our Western tradition. We begged to differ, and…

“I’m sick of Flannery O’Connor.” That was the opening sentence of a recent piece by Randy Boyagoda for First Things magazine. It’s what journalists call “a strong lede,” especially when you consider that First Things readers are likely to revere the memory of Miss O’Connor. (He’s also tired of several other major writers from Hopkins…

When I chose “Art and Risk” as the theme for Image journal’s 2013 Glen Workshops, I had no idea that by the time those events took place, through no fault of our own, Image would be facing a serious, unprecedented financial crisis that would decimate our nonprofit organization. Nor did I expect that I would…