Beyond Our Ken

It’s rare that people pay a first visit to our old farmhouse without asking if we have ghosts.

I can hardly blame them; I wondered the same thing the first time I came here. It’s certainly haunted with Read More ›

Remind Me Who I Am

My mother recently told me about a moving moment from the T.V. show “America’s Got Talent.” She told me about this eleven-year-old girl, small in stature and unassuming, who blew the celebrity judges away Read More ›

More Like Falling In Love Part 4: Who Does What?

(On the eve of the release of the first new song from my upcoming record, I thought I’d get this last blog reposted from a series I wrote about last year’s single, “More Like Falling In Love”. Here are the links to parts 1, 2, and 3.) Read More ›

Kingdom Poets: Sir John Betjeman

[For a while now I’ve been following a blog called Kingdom Poets, written by a Canadian poet named D.S. Martin, whose writings have appeared in a number of publications including Ruminate, Books & Read More ›

Cultivating Discipline

One Saturday morning in February, I was reading through several old essays and detected a couple of threads where certain themes held together. I began printing and grouping and by the time I finished I’d Read More ›

Beyond the Blue

A week ago I’d never heard of Josh Garrels, but after seeing 1001 people chattering on Facebook about his new record, Love & War & the Sea in Between, I gave in to peer pressure and investigated. I have to admit Read More ›

My Father’s Stunning Failure To Achieve

A great memory from my last birthday was getting the chance to listen to and ask questions of my Dad for a few hours. I got to hear, in more detail than ever, the story of his life in the Army—from his enlistment (he Read More ›

Wingfeather Contest Winners Announced!

First of all, I spent the last four hours or so reading all your reviews, and I’ve cried about four times. That’s partly because I’m a crybaby, and partly because I prayed almost every day of the writing of The Monster in the Hollows that the book would connect with you, Dear Readers. What a joy it is to see that, in at least your cases, it did. Read More ›

Album Review: Carousel Rogues

[Editor’s note: Please welcome our latest guest writer, Josh Shive. We’ve been pestering Josh to write for us for quite a while now and are delighted that our merciless pestering has finally paid off. You might Read More ›

The Origin of The Charlatan’s Boy

The other day my sister, a teacher, was trying to help a student fill out some form or other. The form asked for Date of Birth. The girl knew her birthday, but the idea of a birth date, a specific day of a specific year, had her baffled. “The day you were born,” my sister said, a little exasperated, “what year was that?” Read More ›

Beauty Never Lies

One great delight of having a composer for a brother is the fact that he passes the best of his studies on to me. Joel explores reams of classical music that I could never find on my own, and every time he’s home Read More ›

Song of the Day and Notes on Song Cycles

As a fan of old school record packaging (I miss vinyl and the tactile experience of holding large artwork, pulling out the sleeve, and reading every inch of it), I always want to include liner notes with all my Read More ›