Words for Readers and Writers: Spirit-Pooled Dialogues

“Metaphor is the meditative center of a writers inner universe. That's just too cool. This essay got me reading sections aloud to my parents because I needed to gush about it with somebody. Woiwode's essays have been a great encouragement—artistically and spiritually.”

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“I loved it. I'd like to read it again this weekend. The way Woiwode phrased things humbled me completely Lots of food for thought...”

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“Why do you write? Where does it come from? What sort of life is it, anyway? We badger our writers with those questions certain that living that close to fire must surely have taught them something. Woiwode has been asked those questions many times, over the years, and this volume collects a vigorous, various set of answers. While settings and interlocutors shift, Woiwodes core insight, quietly returned to, remains always the same. What is writing but faith expressing itself through love?—giving yourself over to that first stab of insight, spending yourself prodigiously for others, certain that the one who calls you has already given you all things. One can learn much here about reading and writing, but one can learn even more what it means to believe.”

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“The word words and the name Woiwode are only similar sounding but are practically synonymous. Who better to parse the subject of words than Larry Woiwode, one of our countrys ultimate wordsmiths?

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“Few writers can match Larry Woiwode for craft and care. Sentence by beautiful sentence he traces the lineaments of thought, feeling, and experience. He inhabits the roles that life has given him, as writer and critic, father and husband, and Christian, with a constant difficult grace. I admire his writing deeply; it is always gratifying to be in its presence.”

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“A book on craft, yes, but more a book on living, Larry Woiwodes Words for Readers and Writers in my library sits between Flannery OConnors Mystery & Manners and John Gardners On Becoming a Novelist. Not since OConnor has a writer put the reader in such comfortable and uncomfortable places at the same time.”

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“I knew that I was in for a treat the moment I looked at the table of contents, which reads like a tempting menu of topics. When I started to read the essays I was captivated by the energy of Woiwodes mind and even more by how widely read and broadly informed he is. To read this book is to receive a liberal education. I believe that this is one of Woiwodes best books.”

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“In Words for Readers and Writers, Larry Woiwode—one of our most compelling and important contemporary voices—illuminates his life and his experience as a writer-of-faith, as a writer within whom and within whose works a profound Christian belief resides. In these essays and interviews, Woiwode takes us into his interior life, offering artful meditations on the holy acts of reading and writing. Woiwode explores what it means to be a writer-in-Christ, to celebrate the durability and holiness of language, to work at that place where the imagination and the soul intersect and flower. We should listen earnestly to what Woiwode has to say.”

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