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October 2016

October 12, 2016

Parting the Veil

The light on the ceiling of our bedroom is slanted in a parody of the...

October 11, 2016

Art, Icons, and Ant Ovaries

“A world created out of silence gives itself over to prayer.” I’m listening to local...

October 10, 2016

Elegy for My Father

My father: Roy Franklin Harmon, Jr., M.D., passed away on September 22, 2016 at the...

October 06, 2016

The Day My Daughter Found Herself

I want you to watch me run. My daughter Becca sent me that text last...

October 05, 2016

The Art of Steve Prince

This post originally appeared as web-exclusive content in Image issue 78. Steve Prince, a New...

October 04, 2016

Thank You, Black Southern Belles

In the twenty-plus years since the Internet became a feature of our lives, there have...

October 03, 2016

T.S. Eliot, Agent of His Own Demise

In my last post for Good Letters, I took minor issue with a point my...

September 2016

September 29, 2016

A Conversation with Claire Holley

This post originally appeared as a web-exclusive interview accompanying Image journal issue 58. Mary Kenagy Mitchell...

September 28, 2016

The Crazy Sex Lady at the Solitary Banquet

"The crazy sex ladies are coming to school today," said my oldest. "We're missing it."...

September 27, 2016

Getting Close to You, God: A Meditation During the Month of Elul

“You are my light and my help / Whom should I fear?” Thus begins Norman...

September 26, 2016

Looking for a Good Laugh

In his collection of delightfully reflective and paradoxical mini-stories, Espejos (Mirrors), Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano...

September 23, 2016

Poetry Friday: “Visitation Rights” by Jeffrey Harrison

I sometimes talk to friends who have died. Especially to friends who acted as spiritual...

September 22, 2016

The Smell of Black Mold

By John Bryant I write in order that the ornery old bastard and toothless schizophrenic...

September 21, 2016

Lifescapes and the Lonely City

I have a friend who occasionally asks me when I’ll move to a real apartment,...

September 20, 2016

Middle Earth and Sister Moon

The biggest moon I’ve ever seen was over the North Sea in Scotland. Many nights,...

September 19, 2016

The Power of Names

A few weeks back, the news related a story that a confederate veteran killed at...

September 16, 2016

Poetry Friday: “Homily”

Last Sunday I was trying to decide whether to go church or take a walk...

September 15, 2016

Unfriending, Impractical Jokes, and Other Foibles

If I were to graph my mental health over the past five years, the line...

September 14, 2016

What My Kid Knew about Kubo

[Spoiler alert: This post is about the end of the movie, Kubo and the Two...

September 13, 2016

My September 11 Story, and Ours, Part II

For Scott Simon, and for Bill Craven Continued from yesterday. In the back of my...

September 12, 2016

My September 11, and Ours: Part I

For Scott Simon, and for Bill Craven Yesterday was the fifteenth anniversary of September 11,...

September 09, 2016

Poetry Friday: “The News”

What do I do with the daily news of disasters? Do I mumble a quick...

September 08, 2016

The New Critics and the Barbarians

The poet and writer Dana Gioia penned an essay for the December 2013 issue of...

September 07, 2016

I Have No Idea Where I’m Going

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see...

September 06, 2016

Of Cookbooks and Lynchings

“Men and women in automobiles stood up to watch him die.” That’s the sentence one...

September 02, 2016

My Own Commencement, Part 2: The Uses of Confusion

This post is excerpted from Gregory Wolfe’s final commencement address as director of the Seattle...

September 01, 2016

My Own Commencement, Part 1: The Birth of an MFA

This post is excerpted from Gregory Wolfe’s final commencement address as director of the Seattle...

August 2016

August 31, 2016

Microbes, Miracles, and Monstrosities

I’ve always promised myself I wouldn’t work with anything living, a prohibition I applied first...

August 30, 2016

Margo Jefferson’s Negroland

In her photo on the jacket flap of Negroland: A Memoir, Margo Jefferson looks to...

August 29, 2016

Laura Ingalls Wilder and Me

At night at the Ingalls Homestead in DeSmet, SD, we can see the pale, translucent...