Sophfronia’s Blog
Kind Words
A blog about what I find amazing, smart, beautiful, or just plain fun.
Book Review: Hunger-A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay
“I don’t know how I let things get so out of control, but I do.” These words, repeated a few times in Roxane Gay’s memoir, hold the tension of this important work. The tension is the push and pull between strength and vulnerability, courage and fear, reality and illusion, knowledge [...]
The Intentional Writer: Diana Butler Bass
Diana Butler Bass delivered two insightful keynote addresses at Princeton Theological Seminary recently for the Frederick Buechner Writer’s Workshop. The first, “The Accidental Writer,” described how the author whose latest book is Grounded: Finding God in the World, A Spiritual Revolution, fell into her writing career by way of the [...]
Words on Writing from Anne Lamott
Anne Lamott delivered the keynote address for the opening of the Frederick Buechner Writer’s Workshop at Princeton Theological Seminary. It’s my second year leading sessions at this powerful event and I was thrilled to learn Ms. Lamott would be here. I arrived at Miller Chapel extra early to grab a [...]
Inspired by Louis Jordan
I knew Louis Jordan’s music long before I knew his name. My daddy loved B.B. King so I grew up listening to B.B. King and one of my favorite songs he sung was “Caldonia.” I think I liked how Caldonia is pretty close to rhyming with Sophfronia! Anyway, in [...]
Book Review: Living in the Weather of the World by Richard Bausch
This book made me reconsider the word “story”—not the definition of story but our experience of story in its ages-old form before it had the word “short” in front of it; before it was bound in hardcover and made eligible for awards. Before all that there was someone talking and [...]
Happy 100th Birthday Ella Fitzgerald
Today is the 100th birthday of the Queen of Jazz, Ella Fitzgerald. Her music and bold personality have always been an inspiration for me so it's no wonder that one of her songs should find its way into my writing. Her "A Sunday Kind of Love" features prominently in my forthcoming [...]
Inspired by Jackie Robinson
Seventy years ago today, on April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson crossed the color line to play for Major League Baseball's Brooklyn Dodgers. In my forthcoming novel, UNFORGIVABLE LOVE, my character Valiant Jackson is present in the stadium for that historic moment. When he witnesses Robinson's classy behavior in the face [...]
Book Review: Lincoln in the Bardo
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders My rating: 5 of 5 stars Any writer can break the rules of our craft. If he does it poorly the resulting pieces remain at our feet and the confused reader is left to kick at them unsatisfied, like viewing the aftermath of [...]
