The obligatory end-of-year wrap-up post you’ve been waiting for

The year in writing, recognition, loss, and life

If nothing else, 2024 for me was a year of transition and disruption. And — I hope — a year I learned to be more grateful and empathetic.

After 40 years of full-time work, much of it in academia, I entered a new phase of life last January. Some call it retirement, but it has hardly been that. My pursuit of creative writing and some freelance work has kept me busy enough. In addition, my wife and I and our cat had a couple of health scares that made us reevaluate our values and gave us greater insight into the workings of the U.S. health care system, the good, bad, and ugly of it. We also mourned the passing of a few friends from our church family and continue to honor their memory.

In other words, a lot of life happened in 2024. Here are some highlights from the year:

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Silence behind me, silence before me

Some thoughts on writing the end of a thing, inspired by one of my favorite novels of 2024

One of my favorite novels of 2024 is Martyr!, by Kaveh Akbar. It is the story of a twentysomething poet and recovering alcoholic named Cyrus (Karoosh in Persian). When he was just an infant, Cyrus immigrated to the U.S. with his father after his mother was killed when the plane she was on was shot down over the Persian Gulf . Cyrus becomes obsessed with martyrs and martyrdom, and travels from his Indiana home to Brooklyn to meet an Iranian-American artist, Orkideh, who has terminal cancer and is living out her last days in an art museum for her final art exhibit.

I want to share one passage from Martyr! that triggered in me some thoughts about the writing process and its mysteries:

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