Day 157 of #LiveWell2017

I love to read great writing. Great writing doesn’t have to win awards or critical acclaim. For me, great writing connects me to a place, person, idea, or story and inspires me to act, captures my imagination, or makes me think deeply and differently. Great writing turns words into pictures, sentences into sculptures, paragraphs and books into grand galleries of art.

Right now I’m reading Joan Didion’s A Year of Magical Thinking. She is a great writer. She crafts her sentences carefully to convey a particular meaning and in the process makes the reader appreciate not only the content of her essays but the art of writing itself. Mitchell Jackson‘s writing in The Residue Years is completely different from Didion’s, but he, too, crafted sentences and used language that thoroughly swept me into his story and made me feel his characters’ lives with every cell in my body.

Whether it’s a fictional account of an historical event, a biography, an essay, a child’s poem, or a love letter, I appreciate writers who help me connect to their stories in unique and powerful ways.

What is great writing to you? Do you have a favorite writer? Please share.