It’s Just a Word
When someone asks what I do for a living and I tell him I’m the editor of this journal, the next question is often, “So you’re a writer?” Well, no. I do write, I say, but I write too infrequently to call myself a writer.
To my mind, a writer is someone who can’t help but write every day, maybe even pays the bills with it, and strings together more publishable words each week than even the many editors knocking on his door have room to print. Anthony Esolen is a writer, and so are Gary Saul Morson, Rod Dreher, Paul Kingsnorth, and many others we are blessed to have appear in our pages.
I can write, but that is something else. I will even go so far as to say that, on occasion, I will write something that I expect might merit an A grade for journal or magazine writing were there some authority out there grading our work (as an editor, I grade every article in our Touchstone hopper to make sure that there are plenty of As in each issue).
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J. Douglas Johnson is the executive editor of Touchstone and the executive director of the Fellowship of St. James.
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