Holy Writ: A Writer Reflects on Creation and Inspiration

Pauline Carey is an actor, playwright, and fiction writer. She is the
author of Magic and What’s in a Name?

In 1990, at the age of 39, K.D. Miller was confirmed in the Anglican
Church, and in 1994 she published her first story collection. Neither
event was her first brush with religion or creativity, but these
concerns have become the mainstays of her life and the subject of this
collection of essays.

The title says it all, suggesting an irreverent approach to a serious
subject and even a sly stab of blasphemy. Inside the covers, the author
states right off the top that writing stories is her way of praying, and
that she considers the creative impulse “a desire to be at one with
our Creator.” The essays that follow—on writing, religion, and
sometimes acting—have some repetitiveness and a natural touch of
self-absorption, but all are put forward in a snappy style that keeps us
on the page. And sometimes off, as we may pause to disagree with what
she says. But Miller has such a sprightly way with words that keeps us
on her side as she staggers along on her spiritual journey. In the last
piece of the book, she is still rethinking her relationship with church,
and the reader may be too.

Writers are solitary creatures and usually not joiners, but Miller is a
writer who joined a church and actually sat on committees. Her farcical
story of committee antics around the placing of the altar is very funny,
but did propel her out of committees forever, although she continued to
turn up for services on a regular basis. Just as she neglects her body
if she does not go to exercise class, she explains, she would also
neglect her spiritual self if she didn’t take it to church once a
week.

Before starting on the book, Miller sent a questionnaire to several
Porcupine’s Quill writers asking them about their spiritual beliefs
and writing rituals. Many responded, and some—Robyn Sarah, Antanas
Sileika, Melinda Burns, and John Metcalf—sent essays of their own,
which are included in this lively and searching collection.