Bret Lott Publishes Letters & Life

Bret Lott’s newest book, Letters & Life: On Being a Writer, On Being a Christian, offers six engaging and candid essays that reflect on his life and faith, the value of humility, and on the art and practice of writing. The book  delights with the empowering reminder that there is meaning behind our lives, meaning behind what we make or contribute to the world. One of my favorite moments confirms for me, as both a writer and a teacher,  the ethical imperative of writing–how language can capture the big and small in our lives, our inherited histories and contexts, and the complexities of our contemporary moment. Lott writes:

“Precision starts with life. Precision starts with the real. Precision starts in the experiences you yourself have had, and if you want to write–and this is the crux of the whole thing–you better pay attention to what is happening around YOU as a means by which to begin to be precise. You better begin to look, and to see” ( 54).