Charitable Writing – Cultivating Virtue Through Our Words

Richard Hughes Gibson (PhD, University of Virginia) is associate professor of English at Wheaton College. He is the author of Forgiveness in Victorian Literature: Grammar, Narrative, and Community. With designer Jeremy Botts, he codirects Manibus Press, an occasional publisher of artists' books. James Edward Beitler III (PhD, University of Michigan) is associate professor of English at Wheaton College, where he is the director of First-Year Writing and also coordinates the Writing Fellows Program. He is the author of Seasoned Speech: Rhetoric in the Life of the Church and Remaking Transitional Justice in the United States: The Rhetorical Authorization of the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

List of Illustrations

Foreword by Anne Ruggles Gere

Opening Meditation: At the Gallery

Introduction: At the Threshold



Part One: Humble Listening


1. Entering the Study

2. On Humility

3. Humble Listening in Local Writing Communities

4. Humble Listening in Discourse Communities



Part Two: Loving Argument


5. The Law of Charitable Writing

6. On Argument

7. On Charity

8. Charitable Writing as Love’s Banquet

9. Beastly Feasting

10. Making Space at the Table



Part Three: Keeping Time Hopefully


11. Slow Writing

12. Liturgies of Writing



Closing Meditation: At the Gallery

Afterword by Alan Jacobs

Acknowledgments

Appendix A: Practicing Charitable Writing: Discussion Questions and Writing Prompts

Appendix B: Teaching Charitable Writing: Choosing a Via Nova, by Jeffry C. Davis

Appendix C: Writing as a Spiritual Discipline, by Stephanie Paulsell

Bibliography

General Index

Scripture Index