Jenni Simmons is the Editor of the Art House America Blog, and a creative nonfiction writer. Her writing has appeared in Comment Magazine and Proximity Magazine, among others. She enjoys many good things in her life, but she would always rather be reading. You can follow her on Twitter @jennisimmons, and see what she's reading on Goodreads.
[From the Archive] A Medieval Christmas (Downe in the Heart of Texas)
Musings on Kemper Crabb’s “Downe in Yon Forrest” medieval Christmas album, and its relevance in the unrootedness of our culture.
I have seen the poetic, transcendent glory in my neighborhood, and I am here to write, my feet grounded in suburban soil.
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”—Mary Oliver
…to be a blessing like a benediction to the liturgy of my life.
“I have one more year in this decade to try my hand at the art of waiting — my 39th year of life, and now, a new year in the Christian calendar which begins with Advent.”
The elderly in our midst are full of rich stories and wisdom that are all too often overlooked as unimportant and commonplace.
Between the neighbors’ rooftops and low-hanging branches of our Drummond red maple, there is a trapezoidal space of sky that I watch with great interest both in the quiet luminescence of morning, and in the warm glow that precedes sunset pastels, which all too quickly fades to darkness.
It wasn’t mere writer’s block. I had pretended that writing didn’t matter for so long that I was beginning to believe a lie.
How good it is to heal each other, bring ceremony into our homes, employ the art of waiting, share a cup, and take a drink ourselves, just for the sheer pleasure of a spot of tea.
It turns out I just smoked a cigar like me, a woman.
I live for good snail mail days. I either rush out to the mailbox when I hear the mail truck scoot away, or bat my eyelashes and lazily ask of my husband (headed out to a drum gig or errand), “Will you puh-lease check the mail? If there’s anything fun, will you bring it inside?” […]
Jenni Simmons reflects on a week at Image Journal’s Glen Workshop in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Now I ask you, would you hear a story like that just listening to a CD? I think not.
Unfolding Our Imaginations One Thread at a Time: An Interview with Jeffrey Overstreet
An interview with novelist Jeffrey Overstreet, whose next book, Raven’s Ladder will be released on February 16.
Albert Hastings and Other Strangers
Photographs of our possessions and domestic patterns can be portraits, just like the photographs of our faces.
A Rally Cry for Literary Independence
Pete Peterson’s new book is wonderfully imaginative – both in its storytelling, and in its publication.
Annie Dillard’s classic Pilgrim at Tinker Creek inspires a budding writer to really, truly see.
One couple’s liturgy of the neighborhood – in Houston.
I sort of loathe reading most accounts of history and politics. History and politics are two great humanity-shaping forces, and I recognize the importance of absorbing such information. But all too often, these accounts are poorly written: arid deserts of facts and dates, with no mention of stories of the actual people who lived out […]
Sigur Rós Redeems the Music Video
In “Glósóli,” Icelandic band Sigur Rós creatively fuses music and cinema, renewing the lost art of the well-made music video.
The Fall is a film of striking beauty that tells an imaginative story of truth.
When art only pitches its tent in the vast lands of modernism, it “belittles the complicated and powerful ideas of beauty” spoken in classical paintings.
“The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.” -G.K. Chesterton When I was three, I liked to scatter my mom’s magazines on the floor, sit in the mess, and flip each glossy page. She figured out early that I was the literary type who […]
Peace Like a River: Make of It What You Will
Leif Enger, Peace Like a River,Atlantic Monthly Press: New York, 2001. Peace Like a River begins with a miracle. Helen Land gives birth to a son, Reuben, but instead of the typical, healthy shrieks of newborn fear, his lungs did not cooperate with the rest of his anatomy. Reuben himself steps in to the narrative […]
The San José: A Hotel with a Soul
Hotel San José has mastered the art of hospitality in an inspiring, creative fashion – which is why it’s called “a hotel with a soul.”
Sweet Land:the Waltz of Olaf and Inge
Love your spouse, work hard on your sweet land, befriend your neighbor, and spin a good tale.
Top Ten Reasons to Love Snail Mail
The ten periodicals that make mail delivery a joy.
A Medieval Christmas(Downe in the Heart of Texas)
Musings on Kemper Crabb’s “Downe in Yon Forrest” medieval Christmas album, and its relevance in the unrootedness of our culture.
Understanding the ritual and beauty of tea, which reaches across time and the globe.
3191:A Year of Beautiful, Ordinary Mornings
Lord knows I spend too much time on the Internet. There’s Gmail, Facebook, Etsy, thought-provoking online publications (ahem), an endless string of inspiring blogs, Flickr, Goodreads, Pandora, and iChat, to admit to only a few. I mean, the Internet’s other name – the World Wide Web – is just that; while visiting one online destination, […]
Sandra McCracken:A Red Balloon of Hope (Part 2)
Part two of our interview with singer/songwriter Sandra McCracken.
Sandra McCracken:A Red Balloon of Hope (Part 1)
Sandra McCracken’s songs remind us of the fundamentals of goodness, the hopeful truth of restoration, and our part in this healing.
Vassar Miller’s body was out of order, but her soul held rhyme and reason.
Whenever I walk towards the austere building, I’m struck anew by the genius of its placement in a cozy neighborhood where people live, the true life of a city. The idea of sanctuary comes alive between the quiet streets.
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