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A World Ruled by Meaning
Those who know of my intense interest in near-death experiences and past-life memories might be surprised to discover that, not so long ago, I was an atheist. Four years ago, I didn’t believe in a higher power and I didn’t believe in life after death. I had given up all those “spiritual” beliefs around age twenty, when I…
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You Ain’t Smart Unless You Sound Smart
“[B]eing trailer park trash doesn’t preclude intelligence.” If only we lived in a world where this was not news. If only we lived in a world where this was not something a person could prove only by discarding the way of speaking they grew up with and adopting “standard” English. But we don’t live in that world. And that’s what…
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The Invisibility of Evil
“You will learn that when the truth isn’t pretty, expected, or delivered with a fair dose of charm, people will almost always put their faith in a lie.” So reads one of many chilling lines in H.G. Beverly‘s recently released memoir The Other Side of Charm, about her unwitting marriage to a sociopath. Before her marriage to…
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Dying to Be Me
I had the suspicion, when I ordered Anita Moorjani’s memoir Dying to Be Me, that it was going to be a book that I needed to own in hardback. Something told me it would become one of those books I would keep on my shelf for years as a souvenir of an important spiritual and intellectual turning point.…
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A Gossiper of the Imaginary
“When you’re a novelist, you’re a gossiper of the imaginary.” -Jane Smiley, winner of the Pulitzer Prize It’s been awhile since I’ve written any fiction. Sometimes I think I’m too analytical to do a good job of it. I am, after all, a philosopher by training, and philosophy requires thinking very systematically, and favoring rigor…
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Ready for Air
Kate Hopper’s memoir of her daughter’s premature birth–Ready for Air–has finally arrived. And it…is…luminous. On the Brevity Blog, Hopper describes her difficult, ten-year journey to publication. The manuscript of Ready for Air was rejected over and over, by both agents and editors. Many of them complained that the book was “too dark.” Even once she completely rewrote it, it garnered…
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Frying Eyeballs
My eyes hurt. They literally freakin’ ache. Not because I’ve been a diligent, nose-to-the-grindstone sort of adult, slaving over some survival-related task that must be finished tonight whether my vision fails or not. No, I’ve been doing this to myself for pleasure. Because I have been enjoying a book so much that I can’t put it down even when…
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Sharon Hewitt Rawlette, PhD 