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INDEX of Topics

INDEX current as of 10 July 2019


ADVICE for Writers
The Writer's Obligation by Wendell Berry
Advise for Writers by Elizabeth Gilbert
How to Write a Thesis, Umberto Ecco
Writer's Block. No Problem
John Scalzi Speaks to Young Writers
Meter and English Language Poetry
8 Ways to Stimulate Creative Writing
Floating a Book Proposal
Print-on-Demand Self-Publishing
Commissioned Work Can Be Rejected
Poetry Dances by Ed Pacht
Interview with Orhan Pamuk
Hope Ellen Rapson Reflects on her Classical Education

ANGLICAN
Check Out The North American Anglican
Lost in a Big Tent
Divorce Episcopal Style

ASSIGNMENTS/LESSON PLANS for Writing Teachers
The Challenges Writing Teachers Face
Depicting Violence in Fiction
Use Poetry to Teach Parts of Speech
Virtual Non-Reality
The Problem of Suffering
Creative Tension Between Plot and Theme
Building Student Portfolios
Focus on Details
Opening Paragraphs That Rock
Priming the Poetry Pump
Poetry Experiment
The Fiction Germs That Spreads
Scholarly Reflection Produces Poem
Evocative Poetry
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Kayaking: A descriptive essay

Hannah O’Malley (Grade 7)

On clear days when we’re done with schoolwork, my mom will order my sister and me to go outside. We’ll tromp out in the afternoon light, unlock the garage door with a struggle, and fetch our orange life jackets and yellow paddles. If, as we click our life jackets on, we can hear and feel an inquisitive wind combing through the trees and brushing our faces with soft hands, we grin and say it will be a good day.

Since our twin kayaks are stored below the house, I always have to a venture there to fetch them. Impassively, they wait like faithful pets in the cold, stale air and the damp, orange sand which seems to be below every house. Ducking my head, I clamber down there, shoving the kayaks to the square of light so that my sister can pull them the rest of the way out, trying not to scrape their sandy undersides on the ground. Then I emerge back into the light, unfolding from the cramped position that the maze of pipes dictated.

Chatting and laughing about th…
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Response to Sayers’ “Lost Tools of Learning”

Alice C. Linsley


I have been fond of Dorothy Sayers’ writing for over twenty years. It was while reading her Lord Peter Whimsey novels that I came to appreciate the power of literary fiction and I began to write fiction. I consider Sayers’ Nine Tailors and Gaudy Night to be the most finely crafted English mystery novels ever written. They reveal her exceptional eye for detail in story telling, her remarkable vocabulary and grasp of syntax, and her spiritual insights.

Sayers' facility with the English language rests on her exceptionally good classical training. In “The Lost Tools of Learning” Sayers begins by criticizing the modern tendency to regard specialized talking heads as “authorities” on everything from morals to DNA. She opines that the greatest authorities on the failure of modern education are those who learned nothing. We can imagine chuckles coming from some in her audience and frowns on the faces of self-important academics.

While Sayers is correct that we can’t “tu…
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