Getting it right

A number of years ago (2021 to be exact), I wrote an opinion which Art Cullen published in The Storm Lake Times, titled “All the News.” As a writer of opinion for the Charleston Gazette-Mail (West Virginia) and an emerging author, I was humbled by his acceptance then and now.

Recently I browsed the paper’s Facebook page, always intrigued by Cullen’s commentary. Hitting the nail on the head is an almost certainty. And as a voracious reader and author of a number of books for young readers, along with my new spiritual memoir, I was excited to see a post from August listing bestsellers from Beaverdale Books, checking off six of the 10 titles, which made me feel rather good about myself. While I haven’t yet read Cullen’s work (No. 6 on the list), how does a reader skip by the title? Well, one doesn’t. It’s been ordered.

Having attended the Iowa Summer Writers’ Workshop many years ago with one of my students seems to bring the literary circle to fullness. And isn’t that the beauty of the written word? As I thought about the list and recalled the titles I had read, I realized that what bound them one to the other was the universal pull to bring us all together in an attempt to understand the complex world around us. Stories unite. They always have. To imagine a world without them is unsettling at best, absurd at its worse.

As a former English and creative writing teacher on the high school and college levels, my students would often express frustration at trying relentlessly to get it right. That’s when I told them that it was an indication that they were on the right path — the path of making certain that as writers we get it as right as we possibly can, as close to perfection as we can, even knowing full well that it’s not possible. Still, we keep trying. And every now and then we come pretty darn close to getting it right.

Explore these titles and be awakened to so much of what you weren’t aware was missing in your life: compassion, humility, understanding. It is through reading that these lovely intangibles show themselves with such vividness. And if it’s been a while since you’ve picked up a book, the time is ripe to reawaken your sleeping senses. Don’t toss the chance. Reading might just be our only source of enlightenment right now. Hold on and cling tight. The ride will most assuredly be a bumpy one. Too, it might just offer redemption.

Kathleen M. Jacobs holds an M.A. in humanistic studies. She divides her time between NYC and West Virginia, trying diligently to get it right. “Before the Cock Crows: A Spiritual Memoir” is out now.