About Josh
I live in southern Ohio with my wife and kids and our ever-growing family of cats. Although I grew up in Kentucky right across the river from where we now reside, I still call either side "home." Central Appalachia is a beautiful place to live. Fall is my favorite season here. The hills really do make all the difference.
I have a funny relationship with writing. I’m not particularly fond of the craft itself. What I mean is, I don’t necessarily love writing for its own sake. I do enjoy expressing myself and I do feel good about crafting literature that is well-written. But I think I understand what Dorothy Parker was getting at when she said, “I hate writing; I love having written.”
That being said, I am still a writer. When I look within myself, it does seem to be true that I can’t not write. I’m not a great writer, but I have gotten better over time. Writing for me is a medium of personal expression combined with a tool for teaching. In other words, I write mostly to express myself and to teach. Furthermore, my best teaching usually occurs in the context of personal narrative.
Writing is also therapeutic for me in that it helps me sort through my thoughts and experiences. As Elie Wiesel said, “I write to understand as much as to be understood.” So, that's what you'll find me doing a lot of here: creating a framework for understanding my own inner work. We all have to re-write our personal narratives from time to time as we grow to understand our experiences differently. In that sense, I’m past due for an update.
Parker Palmer talks a lot about this inner act of listening. "Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it," he says, "I must listen to my life telling me who I am" (Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation). Since I believe my life has something to teach, just as I believe all lives have something to teach, I don't shy away from sharing myself through writing. I hope you don't mind this personal indulgence. At the end of the day, all I have to give the world are the stories I tell, and there's not a story out there that I know any better than my own.
If you’d like to join me on this journey, then I invite you to pull up a chair. You’re welcome here. I hope my act of putting pen to paper (so to speak) will help you as much as it does me.
~Josh
P.S. While you're at, why not subscribe to my Substack newsletter? That's where I do most of my writing online. There are options for both free and paid subscriptions where you can engage with my work on a deeper level. Just type your email address in the box below!
I have a funny relationship with writing. I’m not particularly fond of the craft itself. What I mean is, I don’t necessarily love writing for its own sake. I do enjoy expressing myself and I do feel good about crafting literature that is well-written. But I think I understand what Dorothy Parker was getting at when she said, “I hate writing; I love having written.”
That being said, I am still a writer. When I look within myself, it does seem to be true that I can’t not write. I’m not a great writer, but I have gotten better over time. Writing for me is a medium of personal expression combined with a tool for teaching. In other words, I write mostly to express myself and to teach. Furthermore, my best teaching usually occurs in the context of personal narrative.
Writing is also therapeutic for me in that it helps me sort through my thoughts and experiences. As Elie Wiesel said, “I write to understand as much as to be understood.” So, that's what you'll find me doing a lot of here: creating a framework for understanding my own inner work. We all have to re-write our personal narratives from time to time as we grow to understand our experiences differently. In that sense, I’m past due for an update.
Parker Palmer talks a lot about this inner act of listening. "Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it," he says, "I must listen to my life telling me who I am" (Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation). Since I believe my life has something to teach, just as I believe all lives have something to teach, I don't shy away from sharing myself through writing. I hope you don't mind this personal indulgence. At the end of the day, all I have to give the world are the stories I tell, and there's not a story out there that I know any better than my own.
If you’d like to join me on this journey, then I invite you to pull up a chair. You’re welcome here. I hope my act of putting pen to paper (so to speak) will help you as much as it does me.
~Josh
P.S. While you're at, why not subscribe to my Substack newsletter? That's where I do most of my writing online. There are options for both free and paid subscriptions where you can engage with my work on a deeper level. Just type your email address in the box below!