Friday Links
April 17, 2026
Our 20th Anniversary Issue is Here!
Civility: The Invisible Glue of Society
Gay Talese on a Writer’s Life
A Gracious and Modest Punch to the Gut
Godson by Steve Knepper
Our 20th Anniversary Issue is Here!
An excellent issue featuring an interview with Dana Gioia a decade after The Catholic Writer Today and responses from Sally Thomas, Randy Boyagoda, and Caleb Kortokrax.
Civility: The Invisible Glue of Society
Civility is something deeper than manners. Drawing on the work of philosopher Martin Buber, Hudson sees it as a disposition to see other human beings inherently worthy of respect. Manners, she writes, are “the form, the technique, of an act, but civility is more.” Without the inner disposition, politeness is a performance. With it, even blunt speech and action can remain genuinely civil.
Indeed, Talese is among the last writers to have lived a life free of pixels, texts, and scrolls. Instead, he pursued his subjects, either befriending them or observing them if they were averse, and then wrote about them with detachment, fairness, and meticulous care. Stories germinated from chance encounters, late-night dinner conversations, and periods of waiting. Drafts and rewrites were composed on yellow legal pads and the typewriter.
A Gracious and Modest Punch to the Gut
Midge Goldberg on Rhina Espaillat’s ninth-full length collection of poems, For Instance:
Dominican-American poet and translator Rhina Espaillat, at ninety-four, has spent decades examining life and then, graciously and modestly, punching us in the gut with her findings. In her newest book, For Instance, Espaillat finds herself very close to the end—looking backward, yes, but also looking forward, staring at her own death.
I doubt you’ll be a simple kind of man
but listen to the song. It’s a good plan.Cuss rarely and for maximum effect.
Attention doesn’t mean you’ve won respect.In friendship, better to be true than nice.
Receive and give the needed hard advice.
Read the rest HERE.
