Our family spent the better part of last year studying the life and music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Together, we journeyed through his childhood, his family, his character, and his music. We discovered that his family was so well-known that it was common to be said of excellent musicians, “He’s quite a Bach.” Branding at…
O! it is excellent To have a giant’s strength, but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant. Shakespeare, Measure for Measure Paul Bunyan, Roald Dahl’s BFG, and the Jolly Green Giant are not without their charms, but all anti-types derive their power from types. If the types become overrun with exceptions, the exceptions…
A couple years ago, I read an op-ed in the paper where the author bemoaned how toy manufacturers always marketed their products as “educational.” Nowadays, it seems as if every dolly and digger needs some sort of salubrious rationale before a kid can play with it. What’s the problem with simply having fun? the author…
In these early months of 2013, when I’m not busy booking concerts, I’m working on songs for the new Slugs & Bugs CD. If you haven’t heard, almost all of the lyrics will come straight from scripture. I’ve used many suggestions from people out there in internet land and if you have one, don’t hesitate…
“Are there real fairies in the world?” I looked up from the mushrooms I was chopping to study my five-year-old daughter’s face. The cock of her head and squint of her eyes matched the skepticism in her voice. Not long ago, a Christian man who my daughter loves told her that fairies don’t exist. She’s…
My friend Vincent Anastasi is a songwriter of some local repute, and his local shows (which he plays with his two oldest boys) are always great fun. But I want to share a song he wrote with his youngest son, who loves Mother Goose. It seems that, behind the innocent nursery rhymes, there is a…
I am very pleased, on behalf of the entire Story Warren criminal syndicate, to welcome our newest partner in crime, Julie Silander. I’m joking about the crime thing, of course, unless I mean stealing your hearts. Julie has been a friend and ally to SW from the beginning and is a personal friend to my…
“Wonder is involuntary praise.” Edward Young said that and I’m glad he did. What are we doing to facilitate wonder in our families? C.S. Lewis said we need an enchantment to set us free from the bondage of worldliness. How are we working for our children’s liberty? If it is only in books and art and…
Editor’s Note: We are very pleased to welcome our very first ever Guest Poster here at Story Warren. Carrie Givens is a fine writer from Pennsylvania who we met at Hutchmoot in Nashville last year. I’m grateful she said “yes” when I asked if we could post her book review to SW. If anyone would…
I’m adding some middle-grade cover images to my portfolio (I’m an illustrator) of stories that don’t exist but that I wouldn’t mind reading. I’ve read stories about giants eating sheep, but I’ve never…
Last week our neighborhood lost power for a day. All day long I walked into dark rooms and flipped light switches out of habit. I’m not accustomed to operating in the dark. As the hours passed, I began to worry about all the food we could lose in the refrigerator. No one was allowed to…
As you can probably guess by now, I really enjoy stories where everything doesn’t end well, where a hard fall illustrates difficult truths, and where there’s a dearth of sunshine and kittens. I enjoy tales of winter not only because they appear in the literary canon, but also because they turn up in Scripture. And…
