Writing Archives | Philip Yancey

Learning to Write

Philip Yancey — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 08:47:45 +0000

I’ve recently begun a book about writing. Now and then I’ll include a brief excerpt from this work in progress as a blog post. These days, everybody is a writer. Several billion of us connect daily through a variety of social media platforms and email programs. For the first time in history, something you write ... Read more

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Word Play

Philip Yancey — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 07:54:50 +0000

Visitors to my Facebook page and website have proved that they love words. Here’s a test: Do you know what an eponym is? Homonyms are words with more than one meaning, such as rock, or fall. Synonyms mean nearly the same thing as another word, while antonyms mean the opposite. Acronyms combine the initial letters ... Read more

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John Donne Redone

Philip Yancey — Fri, 27 Oct 2023 08:41:01 +0000

I have an ancient poet to thank for my first book. During my mid-twenties, while serving as the editor of Campus Life magazine, I came across John Donne’s book Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions. I knew of Donne from fragments taught in high school—“No man is an island…”; “for whom the bell tolls…”—but I almost avoided ... Read more

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The Secret of Memoirs

Philip Yancey — Thu, 28 Jul 2022 08:53:57 +0000

When I decided to write a memoir, I went to the library and methodically made my way through every memoir on their shelves. For years I had been writing idea-driven books, and now I had to learn how to write pure narrative. A memoir should simply tell a story, without analysis or commentary. Before long, ... Read more

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