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Select a Category A. G. Harmon Alissa Wilkinson Allison Backous Art Authors Brad Fruhauff Bradford Winters Bryan Bliss Caroline Langston Chad Thomas Johnston Chris Hoke Christiana N. Peterson Culture D.G. Myers D.L. Mayfield Daniel Bowman Jr. David Griffith Elizabeth Duffy Faith Film Greg Wolfe Guest Contributor Interview Jan Vallone Jeffrey Overstreet Jessica Eddings-Roeser Jessica Mesman Griffith Kelly Foster Lindsey Crittenden Morgan Meis music Natalie Vestin Nick Olson Peggy Rosenthal Personal Reflection Poetry Friday Reflection Relationships Review Richard Chess Richard Cole Sara Zarr Shannon Huffman Polson Sonya Bilocerkowycz Tania Runyan Tony Woodlief Topical Categories Uncategorized Vic Sizemore Writing

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May 2016

May 25, 2016

Impounded by Poetry

By Cathy Warner After one glass of wine, one poetry reading, and two hours, my...

May 23, 2016

The Prophet of Uninterrupted Complaint

I am grateful for deadlines, even when I have little time, or only brief windows...

April 2016

April 18, 2016

Conference Envy: A Survival Guide

Yesterday I was running around the park in a T-shirt with a birthday party full...

April 13, 2016

Finding Another World in Winterkill

"There is another world, but it is in this one." —William Butler Yeats Reading Yeats's...

January 2016

January 29, 2016

The Confessions of X: An Interview with Suzanne M. Wolfe, Part 2

By Gregory Wolfe and Suzanne M. Wolfe Continued from yesterday. Read Part 1 here. GW: One of...

January 21, 2016

Wilberforce: An Interview with H.S. Cross, Part 2

By Gregory Wolfe and H. S. Cross Continued from yesterday. Read Part 1 here. GW: Religion and...

January 08, 2016

George Scialabba and the Problem of Critical Distance

George Scialabba retired from his job this October. He had worked at Harvard University for...

December 2015

December 25, 2015

Snow on Snow

Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow, In the bleak mid-winter Long ago....

December 18, 2015

Poetry Friday: “Christmas Morning in a Hotel Room” by Carrie Fountain

Each Friday at Good Letters we feature a poem from the pages of Image, selected and...

December 17, 2015

For the Love of Hank Stuever, Part 2

Continued from yesterday. Hank Stuever’s 2005 collection of essays Off Ramp: Adventures and Heartache in...

December 16, 2015

For the Love of Hank Stuever, Part 1

It’s been a rotten day. The Fed Ex package didn’t arrive; a typo slipped through...

December 11, 2015

Poetry Friday: “Annunciation” by Katharine Coles

Each Friday at Good Letters we feature a poem from the pages of Image, selected and...

December 04, 2015

Poetry Friday: “Ex Nihilo, Then Us” by Robert McNamara

Each Friday at Good Letters we feature a poem from the pages of Image, selected and...

November 2015

November 25, 2015

Talk to Me in Letters

Dearest Cal: Please never stop writing me letters—they always manage to make me feel like...

November 20, 2015

Poetry Friday: “George Herbert on the Road to Salisbury” by William Wenthe

Each Friday at Good Letters we feature a poem from the pages of Image, selected...

November 12, 2015

Sleeping in Slave Quarters at Sweet Briar College

From my office window I can see the pale yellow plantation house, its sharply pitched...

November 06, 2015

Poetry Friday: “Canticle of Want” by Marjorie Stelmach

Each Friday at Good Letters we feature a poem from the pages of Image, selected...

October 2015

October 15, 2015

The Art of the Realist Crime Novel: From Dashiell Hammett to Henning Mankell

The Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell died October 5, 2015. He was sixty-seven years old....

October 08, 2015

Brush With a Famous Writer

By Ann Conway I was walking down a concourse in the Philly airport when I...

September 2015

September 29, 2015

Save the Economy: Read the Classics

I was reading Pope Francis's encyclical Laudato Si when I began an article called "What...

September 25, 2015

The Harboring Silence, Part 2

Continued from yesterday. The following editorial statement from issue 86 of Image is adapted from...

September 24, 2015

The Harboring Silence, Part 1

The following editorial statement from issue 86 of Image is adapted from a commencement address...

September 14, 2015

Thou Shalt Not Kill Time: The Ethics of Storytelling

By Daniel Taylor Is The Great Gatsby a crime novel? (There’s a murder.) Crime and Punishment?...

August 2015

August 25, 2015

How To Begin a Book

I’m a bit Type A for a poet—or for what people perceive as one. I...

August 19, 2015

Downturned Face, Upturned Eyes

There is no writing more precious and self-indulgent than the essay about the difficulty of...

August 05, 2015

Kent Haruf and the Tie that Binds

By Rebecca A. Spears When you know people all your life you try to understand...

July 2015

July 28, 2015

Poets and Pope Embrace our Planet

Poets have no problem seeing the world evolving within God's care. Okay, that's too general...

July 23, 2015

Dear Patheos

Dear Patheos: I hope you guys are doing well. I’ve been meaning to drop you...

June 2015

June 24, 2015

Franz Wright: Solving the Problems of Poetry

Maybe all poets are unhinged. There is historical evidence for this going back to ancient...

June 23, 2015

Ray Bradbury Lives Forever

On Labor Day weekend in 1932, a twelve year-old boy from Waukegan, Illinois, having just...