Anne Faye

This is my 10 minute writing exercise in response to Erin Cupp's prompt on her blog : Theresa, a book tucked under her arm, meandered around the old college campus. Although she was several years older than most of the students, it was one of her favorite places. The ivy-covered buildings, the picturesque setting by Miller’s Lake, the trees just beginning to take on the colors of fall; it all brought her such a feeling of peace.  She found an open bench and sat against the weathered wood, cracked open the book and inhaled deeply. It was the smell of knowledge. An e-reader could never compare to the sensory indulgence of curling up with a favorite book selected from the shelves of her local library. She often wondered about the lives of books themselves: the people who had read them before her; the places they might have seen, the untold history she could only imagine. Today’s choice was a biography of Helen Keller, an incredible woman by anyone’s standards. She began to ...

On a recent visit to the Odyssey Bookshop , I picked up a free copy of the semiannual newsletter of The Massachusetts Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies , part of UMass Amherst. For a free newsletter, this was a rather hefty tome, filled with intelligent articles. I greatly enjoyed my time perusing this publication. Just reading it made me feel smart, even if I didn't understand all the scholarly topics! One of the articles was "The Protean Virgil: Book History and the Reception of the Classics in the Renaissance" which was the text of The Classical Legacy Lecture delivered on November 19, 2013. In it, Craig Kallendorf discussed, among other things, the way that reading has changed over the ages. For example, in the 1500s, students were encouraged to write in their books, making comments on the passages as they read, focusing intently on each part. In contrast, today students are usually encouraged to look for the big picture. Part of this is due to the ...

Congratulations to fellow Catholic Writer's Guild Members Arthur Powers who won in adult fiction for A Hero for the People: Stories of the Brazilian Backlands and to Marilee Haynes who won in children's fiction for A.K.A. Genius !

In the June 2014 issue of Columbia Magazine , published by the Knights of Columbus, Alton J. Pelowski offered a profile of Myles Connolly (1897 – 1964), a former editor of that publication. A graduate of Boston College, he would serve in the Navy during the end of World War I, work as a reporter for the Boston Post , and then take over the helm of Columbia , a position he would hold for four years. Joseph P. Kennedy, who was starting a new Hollywood studio, offered Connolly a position as a screenwriter. This was a career in which he would excel, working with well-known directors such as the esteemed Frank Capra. Connolly also wrote four novels and one collection of short stories. The most famous of these is Mr. Blue , published in 1928. Mr. Blue was a modern day St. Francis-type character. The narrator encounters him at various instances in his life and each encounter leaves him changed. In fact, this novel is less story and more a series of vignettes of moments in Blue’s life...

This prayer for all those who write Catholic Fiction is from What World Is This? and Other Stories , featuring the short story winners of the Tuscany Prize (excellent book, by the way). To All Writers of Catholic Fiction  May you know God's Beauty, Love, and Peace, may your work be infused with His Grace, and may Our Lady watch over you.

I've been buried in antique books lately, attempting to sell them for a friend. It's not a bad place to be, really. I love the smell and feel of old books and it's a delight simply to have them around and wonder about their history. I figured as long as was surrounded by such works, I might as well do some research on the subject. I have a few more books that I am waiting for at the library, but the first one that came in was Rare Finds: A Guide to Book Collecting by David and Natalie Bauman, owners of Bauman Rare Books . This is a beautiful book in itself, offering delightful photographs of treasured literary masterpieces. It offers an overview of the most highly collectible works, including some interesting facts about them. It is obvious on every page that the Baumans are truly in love with books. However, most of the ones they feature would be out of reach of everyone except the most well-heeled collector. For the rest of us, this book has value for the pleasure per...

The Public Library: A Photographic Essay by Robert Dawson" (Princeton Architectural Press, 2014) is more than simply a collection of beautiful photographs of libraries from around America. While that in itself would make an attractive book, this particular volume contains many reflective essays regarding the history of libraries and their current place in American society. To complete this project, Dawson spent eighteen years taking pictures of hundreds of libraries in 47 states. He writes, "My photographs capture some of the poorest and wealthiest, oldest and newest, most crowded and most isolated, even abandoned libraries." On a personal note, one of the libraries included is Storrs Library in nearby Longmeadow, Massachusetts - my copy of this book came to me via inter-library loan from that very library. In the Foreward, Bill Moyers writes that "when a library is open, no matter its size or shape, democracy is open, too." It is a place open to all wher...