Eleanor Bourg Donlon

Poets, as a class, are business men. Shakespeare describes the poet’s eye as rolling in a fine frenzy from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, and giving to airy nothing a local habitation and a name, but in practice you will find that one corner of that eye is generally glued on the royalty returns. –P. G. Wodehouse

Everybody–and his Aunt Nellie–has a novel stashed in a desk somewhere. Most of them are pretty dreadful, some are rather good, and a few are moderately brilliant. Nearly all of them will never be published and those that are will not necessarily include the good or the brilliant.

For those who aspire to a literary vocation, this state of affairs is disquieting and dashed frustrating. We write, revise, dream, and labor, investing emotions, energy, and time, all the while hoping and praying for a break. [Read more...]

Mary Angelita Ruiz

Richard John Neuhaus sang “Come Thou Fount of Ev’ry Blessing,” that stalwart American hymn, as though it were a rollicking drinking song, the rhythm swinging like a full tankard in a fist. His voice was rumbling and huge and pleasantly out of tune and his eyes lit up as he sang:

COME thou fount-of EV’RY ble-ssing
Tune my HEEAART to singthygrace!
STREAMS of mer-cy NE-VER cea-sing
Call for SOOONGS of loudestpraise!

It was a favorite hymn of the Community of Christ in the City, the little ecumenical community in Manhattan that was Father’s home for over thirty years, and my home for almost three while I worked for his journal, First Things. [Read more...]

Eleanor Bourg Nicholson

Poets, as a class, are business men. Shakespeare describes the poet’s eye as rolling in a fine frenzy from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, and giving to airy nothing a local habitation and a name, but in practice you will find that one corner of that eye is generally glued on the royalty returns. –P. G. Wodehouse

Everybody–and his Aunt Nellie–has a novel stashed in a desk somewhere. Most of them are pretty dreadful, some are rather good, and a few are moderately brilliant. Nearly all of them will never be published and those that are will not necessarily include the good or the brilliant. [Read more...]