Break, Blow, Burn, and Make: A Writer’s Thoughts on Creation

From the award-winning author of On Fragile Waves comes an inspirational, surprising guide to creation and creativity, and how both bring us closer to God.

Centuries ago, sound theology and good fiction were friends and not strangers. Decades ago, authors strove not for self-expression and self-disclosure but for a mastery of craft and language and books that transformed the reader with wisdom and love. In more recent years, the old ideals have been exchanged for lesser ones.

Few guides to writing, which tend to focus on mechanics, point of view, and plot, address the more important matters of meaning, depth, and heart. But it is the latter qualities that make a book a blessing and gift to both writer and reader. Like Christ’s invitation to follow, they demand a risk and sacrifice of the self and all it holds dear. Writers from George MacDonald to James Baldwin understood this, but in recent years this understanding has been lost. Making old things new, this book proposes an ethics of reading, writing, and living based on truth and love.

Break, Blow, Burn, & Make returns the literary conversation to the practices of co-creation with God. Part bugle call, part compass for writing and for life, and part love song to the books that set us on fire, it offers those who are willing to receive it the courage to live, read, and write more deeply and honestly.

E. Lily Yu is the author of the novel On Fragile Waves, which won the Washington State Book Award, and the story collection Jewel Box. She received the Artist Trust LaSalle Storyteller Award in 2017 and the Astounding Award for Best New Writer in 2012. She lives in the Pacific Northwest.