Welcome to your front row seat to art as experience!

Want to know what to read and why? Can’t make heads or tails of poetry, but you know you’re missing something? You’re in the right place. If you don’t live near Denton, TX to come and chat on my porch or join my book group, meet me here. I’ll help you see that when you pay deep attention to the good, the beautiful, and the true, these realities pay you back by inspiring you to live a larger life than you thought possible.

I taught English for twenty-five years at Wheaton College. Now I’m free to invite you into my reading circle without assignments or assessment—just the joy of reading with like-minded others. I want to be that English prof that you never knew you needed!

Art & Soul has a few organizing rooms!

LIT CLUB HUB: Since I can’t join all of the wonderful book groups on Substack, I maintain a list of them. There’s truly something for everyone here!

St. Flannery’s Room: My essays about fiction will live here, with patron saint Flannery O’Connor.

St. Henry’s Room: My essays about creative nonfiction will live here, with patron saint Henry David Thoreau.

St. Emily’s Room: My essays about poetry will live here, with patron saint Emily Dickinson.

Read With Me!: This is where you can see what I’m reading next and how to get on board with the conversation with me and others in this community.

A Word about Subscribing

I’m hoping to keep everything free for my subscribers for as long as I can. If you can support me on a different tier, please do! I so very much want to spend my days encouraging and inspiring readers, and I seem to have unending dental bills.

You can also support me by purchasing books I recommend through my link on bookshop.org or Amazon.com. (I’m part of the problem that created Amazon, so I’m never going to fault you for buying books through them. But if you can afford to pay a little bit more, please consider using bookshop.org.

For a smoother reading experience, get the Substack app.