A poem and a post at Literary Life

I have two features at Literary Life today.

One is a poem, "Imago Dei," that helps to introduce Literary Life's book feature in September, Madeleine L'Engle's Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art. The poem is inspired by this statement by L'Engle: "If the work comes to the artist and says, "here I am, serve me," then the job of the artist, great or small, is to serve." The poem provides a little (poetic) explanation of the origin of a critical scene in my novel Dancing King. You can read "Imago Dei" here.

The second feature is post on fiction, "Finding Faulkner via Mexico and Peru." I never read William Faulkner until my mid-30s, and here I was, a born-and-raised Southerner. I discovered Faulkner after reading Conversation in the Cathedral by Mario Vargas Llosa and novels by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Carlos Fuentes, and other Latin American writers. You can read the post at Literary Life here.