Bruce Cockburn (pronounced Ko-burn) recently released his twenty-fifth CD, Breakfast in New Orleans Dinner in Timbuktu. An inspired lyricist whose style is a soothing…
Marsena Konkle
Marsena Konkle is author of the novel A Dark Oval Stone. She also gives talks on body image to try to combat the media's incessant message that men and women must look a certain way in order to be beautiful. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Vermont College and lives and writes in the Chicago area.
Good Will Hunting (Gus Van Sant, 1997)
Good Will Hunting took me by surprise. With Robin Williams playing the part of a psychologist to a desperate and abused young man, I…
Bruce Almighty (Tom Shadyac, 2003)
There are a few Jim Carrey movies that, if you put a gun to my head, I would admit to liking despite my greatest…
Tabloid Dreams (Robert Olen Butler, 1996)
Literature enlarges our being by admitting us to experiences not our own,” wrote C.S. Lewis. “They may be beautiful, terrible, awe-inspiring, exhilarating, pathetic, comic,…
Cloister Walk (Kathleen Norris, 1996)
There is a small monastery a few blocks away from my home and I always pass it with a certain amount of interest. What…
If I Die in a Combat Zone… (Tim O’Brien, 1975)
Words often fail me. Especially when I’m trying to convey an emotion or experience that took me past the edge of my comfortable, everyday…
Someone to Watch Over Me (Richard Bausch, 2004)
One of my favorite stories is only eighteen pages long. A length that is easily read in a single sitting, during quiet moments when…
The Chosen (Chaim Potok, 1967)
Perhaps you can tell by the worn cover of this book that The Chosen is a favorite of mine. I’ve had this copy since…
The Brothers K (David James Duncan, 1996)
Even though I’ve read it half a dozen times, each time I pull my battered copy of The Brothers K by David James Duncan…
Breaking Her Fall (Stephen Goodwin, 2003)
Junior high has changed a lot since I was fourteen, GenXer though I am. I remember in seventh grade, my girlfriends and I were…