David Rodeback on Writing, Language, and Books

antique typewriter - Writing What I Believe

Writing What I Believe, Writing What I Love (Part 3)

The writerly thrills I chase are quotidian. It’s fine with me if others fill their books with the magic of wizards, castles, and all things speculative and paranormal. For my part, I want to tease the magic – and light and darkness – out of ordinary moments.

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American Fork High School Marching Band

Writing What I Believe, Writing What I Love (Part 2)

This may sound shallow or Pollyannish. But lately I am drawn more to questions of how we live together in families, neighborhoods, and communities – including religious communities – and less to similar queries on a larger scale. We navigate these things throughout our lives, but with special intensity during adolescence, so perhaps it makes sense to write of youth.

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War and Peace - Writing What I Believe

Writing What I Believe, Writing What I Love

I want to enjoy a novel in all the usual ways – laughing, savoring the building suspense, shedding the occasional manly tear. But I especially want to think. I want to think new thoughts and test and rearrange old ones. I want to see and understand the world, myself, and other people in new and unexpected ways. I want to finish the book with a sense that there are still things for me to learn from it, by pondering it or even reading it again. I want a book with a heart and a mind.

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Barnes and Noble American Fork - Bookbuying Resolutions

My New Year’s Bookbuying Resolution — Join Me!

A new Barnes and Noble bookstore coming to American Fork prompts a bookbuying resolution for the new year.

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man reading at a desk

That Teetering Stack of Books I Read in 2022 and 2023 (ish)

In which David Rodeback chats about 33 books he’s read in the past two years, give or take, and lists a few more. Fiction, non-fiction, and non-fiction about writing.

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stack of books - books I read

Books I Read Lately – Winter 2022 Edition (in September)

When I finish reading a book, I stack it on a certain shelf near my desk in my home office,…

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Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, My Two Favorite Authors, and Mother’s Day

My two favorite authors, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Vasily Grossman, treasured Raphael’s Sistine Madonna from different perspectives. What that has to do with Mother’s Day …

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pen writing - Good AF Writers

Where We Do Difficult Things:
Good AF Writers

Like Good AF Writers, most critique groups have three nerve-wracking activities in common: reading an excerpt of your writing aloud, hearing others’ feedback on your writing, and giving others your feedback on their writing.

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From the Author

David Rodeback

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And if you’re interested in my published fiction, which mostly isn’t about politics, check out my two published collections at 60 East Press.

David Rodeback - published fiction books