Jamie Janosz

Nowadays the word "religion" gets a bad rap.  But add "old-timey" to it, and, well, it just doesn't feel so bad. It's a bit odd that, as a city/suburban girl, I'm often drawn to backwoods expressions of faith. This morning, I was listening to a rendition of "Build Me a Cabin in Gloryland" by Hank Williams. Its twangy, foot-tapping beat resonate with my soul. I think of the old classics like "I'll Fly Away," "Power in the Blood," and "When the Roll is Called Up Yonder"... These gospel tunes make me want to attend a little church in the holler where they have wood floors, hard pews, and a preacher that yells a bit too much. I want a choir that is out of tune and a piano player that can hammer on those keys. I want to see the sunlight streaming in a window with just a little bit of dust floating in the air. I used to watch Little House on the Prairie on television, and I loved when Pa and Ma would load...

In college, my friend Amy and I were shameless Flannery O'Connor groupies.  We were fellow writers and students at a midwest Bible college. In our Creative Writing course, the professor introduced us to many authors we had never read - but Flannery quickly became our favorite. Her characters were unexpected: disturbing, grotesque, and larger-than-life. Yet they were also ordinary - the type of people you might encounter at your local WalMart. They were overweight, loud-mouthed, some suffered deformities, others were drifters. They spoke crassly, and then (often in the same breath) they would speak about God. As she said so well, "The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it." We had never read faith stories like these. Flannery O'Connor's stories were not the sanctified, made-for-tv Christian-novels we had grown up on by authors like Grace Livingston Hill or Janette Oke. These were rough and tumble, edgy, almost obscene. Ye...

A former student asked me to give her the name of some helpful books on writing. "Practical or inspirational?" I asked. She wanted both. I agree. Most of us who love to write already understand the rudimentary skills of writing. We aren't looking for books on grammar (although refreshers don't hurt). We want to know how other writers actually do it. We want their secrets, the inside scoop. We want to know if we really need to write at the same hour a day, producing fifty pages of text each day. We want a reason to pick up a pen or sit down at our keyboard and produce text. Okay - here are a few that I have found particularly helpful, but also deliciously comforting (in no particular order)... 1) Bird by Bird - Anne Lammott I love this book by Anne because she makes me laugh - and she assures me that I am not alone. She understands the pain, the insecurity and the neuroses that come with being a writer. She also gives some sage advice. One of my f...