I Capture the Castle Archive
In Defense of Comfort
Two “women’s” novels by Stella Gibbons and Dodie Smith, from 1932 and 1948 respectively, quietly pose the suggestion that to be concerned with comfort is not shallow, but merely practical, and that taking control of your surroundings, either forcefully or with empathy, can lead to self-actualization.
A Castle in Our Backyard: Activating Imaginations in Ireland
The fiction writing workshop I’m teaching for Spalding University is winding down the day I discover that, behind Oyster Lodge, where our classes meet, at the end of Galway Bay, there’s a small castle. I’m satisfyingly tired after exploring Dublin and Galway through the lenses of their literature and