Tony Woodlief | Author

The Artful Life

A few things

I’ve published a few things over the past few days that perhaps you’ll like: This is about a largely forgotten Oklahoma curmudgeon who foretold both cancel culture and our modern propensity for riots. This is about what letting my twin toddlers help me install doorstops around our house taught me about civilizational collapse. And for …

A few things Read More »

Writing it slant

Here’s a little story I wrote about how my homeless alcoholic brother taught me to love a poem. If you’re not sure it’s worth the click, here’s an excerpt: “I’ve gotten misty at poems, even gasped once. But never have I experienced my brother’s visceral joy. What would the anointed experts say about this? Is …

Writing it slant Read More »

Ten stories you can read if you don’t like men with hairy bellies and cats

A lot of people are talking about a short story in The New Yorker right now. A short story. If you care at all about writing and literature and the seemingly inexorable Western slide into voluntary aliteracy, this seems like a good thing. But so maybe “Cat Person” isn’t for you. Some people want to read …

Ten stories you can read if you don’t like men with hairy bellies and cats Read More »

Hammering art

They say all great men have a morning routine, so I figured I ought to rush right out and get me one of those. I’ll belabor the elements of that routine while subtly flattering myself for it some other time; the point today is that it often includes listening to Writer’s Almanac while I make …

Hammering art Read More »

It doesn’t come with a parking spot, but it’s still pretty darn nice

The good people at Image Journal have named me their artist of the month. I like being reminded that writers are artists, and I’m honored to be included among the many fine artists—of all stripes—who have been similarly recognized by Image in the past. Here’s an excerpt from the kind things they say about me: …

It doesn’t come with a parking spot, but it’s still pretty darn nice Read More »

Uninterested

Finally, fiction from me that doesn’t involve death or melancholy or predestination or anything else likely to induce heavy drinking. It’s all dialogue, and I wrote it years ago whilst sitting utterly uninspired and bored in a large corporate bureaucracy. And the good people at Work Literary Magazine saw fit to publish it. Here’s an excerpt: …

Uninterested Read More »

Everybody dance now

Some of you may like my latest essay, “Art as a Common Gift.” Here’s an excerpt: Imagine that. Millions of people, many of them knowing not the first words of orthodox praise, harboring scant knowledge of theology, yet all of them whispering back to the whisper within their spirits, imitating the God they may only …

Everybody dance now Read More »

Elect art

My latest short story is in the current edition of Image, for those of you with a literary bent. And for those of you bent theologically, in this case, because in my story John Calvin attends a writing workshop so he can learn to craft Christian romance novels. That’s not what the story is about, …

Elect art Read More »

Thin thread

Some of you may like my latest essay at the Image Good Letters blog. Here’s an excerpt: “Telling a story along that thin thread, however, means abandoning the notion that the world pierces us more deeply, that our hearts sing more loudly. What if the opposite were true? What if the reason there are television …

Thin thread Read More »

Movie dads

Some of you may enjoy my latest essay at Image, about fathers in movies. Here’s an excerpt: “I want to explain that when you’ve got four boys to cook for and look after at the tail end of a work week, finding a $5 copy of Boondock Saints feels like a win. “I really need this,” …

Movie dads Read More »

Truth through lies

Some of you may like my latest Image essay, which is about writing truth through fiction. Here’s an excerpt: “Maybe we have to come at truth sideways, which if nothing else means saying it sideways, which is what I like about fiction, that you never have to worry about some literal-minded pharisee insisting that actually …

Truth through lies Read More »