Author Archives: Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew
Writing from Deep Gladness to the World’s Deep Hunger
As I move to the close of my second decade of teaching creative writing, I’m experiencing a dramatic shift in my philosophy. Writing has always been for me a means of personal discovery; I came to understand and claim my identity as a bisexual Christian when writing Swinging on the Garden Gate, and then melded my spiritual direction training with writing coaching to support others in profound personal healing and exploration through writing. I’m a … Continue reading
Giving Your Story a Plot
I can’t tell you how often I read early drafts of memoirs that are thorough, lively recordings of events, great for preserving family history but absolutely unsatisfying as memoirs. First this happened, and then this, and then this… Even when the events are shocking, amazing, horrific, terrifying, or otherwise scintillating, the drafts read like flat historical records. Some authors stop there. Their purpose is creating a record of events, or simply getting down the story … Continue reading
Four Excuses Not to Write Spiritual Memoir, and One Invitation
(This blog post is reprinted after appearing in The Loft’s “Writer’s Block.”) “I’m not interested in spiritual stuff. I just want to write stories.” A friend—a thoughtful, church-going friend—said this to me in passing the other day. Since she couldn’t hear my internal temper-tantrum, I’ll give it here: What in tarnation is more spiritual than stories?! Every story, from a child’s imaginative play to an adult’s crafted composition to an elder’s reminiscing, contains both the … Continue reading